Does UAT render the Sprint Review useless at your org?
Hi,
I am the scrum master of two dev teams within my organization. I have received feeback from both of my teams and their respective POs that they feel the sprint review ceremony is redundant since UAT ensures our business partners are happy with what we produced, or if we need to create additional stories.
has anyone else encountered this situation, and if so do you have advice on how we can tailor this ceremony so my teams do not feel like it is redundant?
Thanks,
HF
Is UAT ensuring that the product and its backlog are inspected and adapted, by the whole team, in accordance with the latest stakeholder business intelligence and the most recent empirical evidence of product-market fit?
Is the Scrum Team participating in the UAT and discussing with the "testers" how to make changes so that it optimizes value? Is UAT occurring at the end of the sprint and before the beginning of the next sprint so that the adaptions being discussed can be taken into consideration for planning of the next sprint? Or is the UAT team providing you a list of things during your next sprint with which the team then creates stories?
From the Scrum Guide (bold text added by me for emphasis):
A Sprint Review is held at the end of the Sprint to inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog if needed. During the Sprint Review, the Scrum Team and stakeholders collaborate about what was done in the Sprint. Based on that and any changes to the Product Backlog during the Sprint, attendees collaborate on the next things that could be done to optimize value. This is an informal meeting, not a status meeting, and the presentation of the Increment is intended to elicit feedback and foster collaboration.
The purpose of the Review is for discussion/collaboration that leads to inspection and adaption. In my experience UAT by external entities(stakeholders in Scrum terms) usually does not include the discussion aspects. While UAT is valuable in a lot of situations, it does not provide the interaction needed to inspect and adapt. It usually just results in a list of requests. If UAT is being done during and before the end of the sprint, take that list to the Review and use it to start the discussions with the external stakeholders. Stakeholders are supposed to be participants in the Review. If you are not including them, then I can see how the team is failing to see the benefit of the event.
UAT ensures our business partners are happy with what we produced
Out of curiosity: Do your business partners agree with that assessment?
To add to the excellent advice above, I'd like to contribute by saying that even if "UAT ensures our business partners are happy with what we produced", when they UAT they only see individual pieces or a combination. In most cases, they don't see the whole picture :)
In addition to what the others have said, an important part of the Sprint Review is for the team to gather feedback from stakeholders. If the entire team isn't at UAT to gather this feedback, how might transparency be lost?
Another factor is the Sprint Review time-box. How long is your UAT period? Wouldn't the inspection process for UAT go much deeper than what would happen in a Sprint Review?
Your next step could be to summarize the feedback given here and help your Product Owners understand the 'why' behind the Sprint Review. Frame it with empiricism.