Note that the language used by stakeholders rarely matches the technical language native to your product space. For instance, if a sponsor seems particularly concerned about the accessibility of your product, make sure to point out its accessible features. Find out what these are and make sure to touch on them in the demo in the language of stakeholder. If you know that you have a more technical, playful, or informal audience, you should experiment and adapt to see what works best (this is Agile after all!) Speak the stakeholder’s languageĮvery stakeholder or sponsor has their pet features and requirements. For instance, this post errs on the side of encouraging a more formal, polished, narrative-based demo that tends to play well to executive sponsors in larger organizations. Keep in mind that there are lots of ways to give a demo, and the best one might depend on the dynamics of your particular organization. For this reason, most of these tips focus on how to speak to stakeholders and sponsors. Especially consider who your sponsors and stakeholders are-the content of the demo may not change much if the CEO is in the room, but the amount of preparation you do probably should since the stakes are obviously higher. Ideally it’s developers, sponsors, stakeholders, and the product owner, but this can vary by team. Perhaps the most important factor in giving a great demo is knowing your audience. We’ll be adding to it step-by-step as we go. I like to have a single document that serves as an outline or agenda, so start by creating one now. Okay, so you’ve been tapped / elected / volunteered to give a demo, what’s the first step? Start by gathering information and setting some boundary conditions for the demo. This post is specifically geared towards helping you give a great one. Note that I’m not going to spend much time describing what a demo is-there are plenty of other posts online about that. If you’re nervous about giving your first demo, haven’t enjoyed giving demos in the past, or you just want to get better at demoing, this post is for you! For presenters, however, the demo can be a stressful exercise due to a lack of confidence, structure, or practice.

The Sprint Demo (often part of the Sprint Review ceremony in Agile/Scrum methodology) is a critical step in completing a sprint, an opportunity to excite stakeholders, and a chance for developers to show off their work.

Sprint scrum