Open Invitation to Sprint Review
The Scrum Guide explicitly states that the Sprint Review's attendees include the Scrum Team and key stakeholders invited by the PO.
One, does this mean to you that the Review is limited to these attendees?
Two, if you do take it as the Review is limited to these attendees, what reasons do you think there are for not wanting particular attendees?
To provide some context, my organisation is trying to make Sprint Reviews open to everyone in the business. While the idea floats around, I want to ensure we are not slipping into some potentially detrimental practice. I'm struggling to come up with any solid reasons against this idea, but I'm wary they might exist down to the tone of the Scrum Guide.
If anyone could provide share actual experiences with this, that'd be great!
Thanks!
What are the consequences of this likely to be for focus during the session, and on the ability of the Scrum Team to inspect and adapt?
For the most part, Scrum doesn't really ban anyone from any meeting, but it defines the members that would have participant roles. While a Product Owner can sit in on a Daily Scrum, for example, they're intended to be a silent observer and not a participant. They can take their comments to a sidebar or another scrum event, but they shouldn't be taking up the 15-minute timebox with stuff they want to talk about.
When you add significant transparency to your events, There are two concerns I'd have with this:
- You're working with teams of people. People often act on their "best behavior" when an executive is sitting there, and may not want to make waves or complain about genuine problems for fear of the high visibility. Scrum events lose their value when everyone wants to look like a "team player" and a "yes man" rather than actually address problems and progress in Scrum.
- People like to interject their own thoughts, even if they're supposed to be attending as silent observers. Sometimes as a Scrum Master, you may have to ask your observers and even optional team members to leave a Scrum event entirely if they're being disruptive. Those interruptions are often based on good intent, so it can be a difficult situation to traverse.
Yep, you're both right (I know why you're asking, Ian) and I agree there is the observer effect and potential focus loss, etc. with having a completely open review.
I have people quite high up the management chain who are for an open review, and would certainly argue it favours 'transparency', 'honesty' and so forth. So I'd like to hear people's experiences with it. My reasoning alone is likely not going to be enough, so if there are actual examples I can use then it might start to help my effort.