Demo committed but not Done stories

Only work that is "Done" is shown and inspected at the Sprint Review. Undone work is not fully transparent to those inspecting the Increment and giving feedback, and misunderstandings and wrong decisions could be made if "undone" work is shown. 

In my experience it isn't worth it. Imagine you are showing the new feature to a stakeholder, and there's just one small piece of undone work left. They see the feature and feel it is ready for release, and then it turns out to be a show stopper change that may take weeks and you cannot release the feature.

First things first: The entire Scrum Teams commits to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team - among others, the Sprint Goal. So you are not committing to 'stories', or rather more generally PBIs, as 'stories' might be one form many representations of them.

Did you already read at least part about Sprint Review in Scrum Guide? If yes, which part of that description is unclear for you and don't provide guidance for your question?



Here are some tips that might help you find some answers:

(...) the Scrum Team and stakeholders collaborate about what was done in the Sprint. (...)

It states that it is a collaboration of the entire Scrum Team, not only the PO. Also, take a look that the word done is used in its general dictionary form - so you should understand it also more generally, i.e.:

- "Did you finish writing your book?"

- "No, I have just done the first two chapters so far."

another tip:

(...) The Sprint Review includes the following elements:

• (...)
• The Product Owner explains what Product Backlog items have been "Done" and what has not been "Done";

(...)

Take a look at word includes what is the dictionary meaning of that word? It does not indicate a complete list of things, it only explicit some parts of a bigger whole, i.e.: 

• Box includes six car-toys with stickers to change its looks.

Meaning there are other things in the box, not only the car-toys and the stickers. For example, there might be three figures of drivers and ten parts of the race track.

Also, one of that included "bullet point" explicitly states: and what has NOT been "Done". Here we have done write as "Done" which means: "Done according to the definition of done" - but also we have a not that negates the meaning.

In the end, you should remember what is the purpose of that event, some hints:

(...) 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. (...)

Hope, it will help you find your answer 😉

I couldn't agree more with Piotr. It's all about inspected, adapt and being transparent. 

Sprint Review it's the first place where you can get so valuable feedback from a broader audience. So despite the story is not done, show it. Feedback may be applied to the story in the next sprint. But you need to be loud and clear with its status "not done" - to not make stakeholders feel like the story is going to be released in a moment. 

Can we demo at the Sprint Review committed but not Done stories if the Product Owner agrees to that? 

To be blunt, yes you can.  But what is the real value of doing so?  As @Chris Belknap stated it can be dangerous to do so.  But I have worked with teams that will occassionaly do so if there is a real benefit.  For example, the story was being worked on in the Sprint and discovery brought to attention that the original understood goal of the Sprint Backlog Item cannot be done or would be potentially risky to be introduced into the application. The team feels it is not right to introduce the changes into the increment as it can introduce risk to the company. Showing the work that has been done so far and discussing why the team does not feel comfortable continuing will provide an opportunity to adjust and move forward with that value. Just make sure that the stakeholders are extremely clear that this is not "done". 

If there isn't a good reason for showing it, don't. 

Can we demo at the Sprint Review committed but not Done stories if the Product Owner agrees to that? 

Would the work that remains to be done be clarified, and made transparent on the Product Backlog?