Article

Sprint Review vs. Retrospective: How Do They Compare? (Chart Inside)

December 04, 2024

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If you plan on adopting scrum practices or joining a scrum team, you’ll need to become familiar with sprint reviews and retrospectives. 

Sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives are scrum events that help teams improve their sprints. However, despite sharing a similar goal, each type of meeting has a different area of focus.

In this article, we compare the sprint review vs. the sprint retrospective. After reading, you’ll understand the purpose and benefits of both scrum events and their key similarities and differences.

What Is a Sprint Review?

A sprint review is a meeting held by scrum teams on the last day of a sprint. During these meetings, team members showcase the work completed in the sprint and collect product feedback from key stakeholders. In this collaborative space, team members can answer questions about their work, identify areas for improvement, and discover cross-collaborative opportunities.

Depending on the size and structure of a company, a sprint review may include a single team or several teams. Some teams may invite external stakeholders like customers or business partners to sprint reviews. 

What Is the Purpose of the Sprint Review?

The purpose of a sprint review is to celebrate product accomplishments and collect feedback. The sprint review acts as a mechanism for consistent feedback exchange at the end of each sprint. This feedback loop reinforces quality control, adaptability, and alignment with goals and stakeholders. 

Sprint reviews may also be combined with sprint planning to identify and reprioritize work for the next sprint. For example, with the rich insights collected during the sprint review session, scrum teams may introduce new work for the upcoming sprint and deprioritize other efforts accordingly.

Finally, the sprint review strengthens transparency, accountability, and motivation. All participants have an understanding of what their team members are working on. Further, by openly sharing work, scrum teams have a greater sense of accountability and collective ownership. 

What Is a Sprint Retrospective?

image of people icons in a group following continuous cycle

A sprint retrospective is a dedicated space for teams to reflect on the sprint process as opposed to the product featured in sprint review sessions. Team members have an open floor to discuss what went well and what didn’t.

When is a sprint retrospective meeting held? It depends. Teams rigidly following the scrum process may engage in a sprint retrospective at the end of each sprint. On the other hand, some teams may participate in a sprint retrospective meeting every one to three months. Teams can decide on the best sprint retrospective cadence for their circumstances or schedule them as needed.

Only internal team members participate in a sprint retrospective. While some teams may bring external stakeholders into their sprint review to discuss the product, a sprint retrospective focuses only on the processes within the sprint and how the team collaborated. 

What Is the Purpose of the Sprint Retrospective?

The purpose of a sprint retrospective is to improve team processes. Areas of focus within a sprint retrospective include:

  • Aspects of sprint processes that work well
  • Aspects of sprint processes that aren’t working well
  • Reflection on collaborative efforts
  • How to improve challenges and bottlenecks

Psychological safety is crucial to effective sprint retrospectives. Team members need to feel comfortable to raise challenges and suggest new ways of collaborating. Facilitators can kick off the meeting with a sprint retrospective icebreaker question to ease tension. 

Sprint retrospectives can improve sprint processes, employee morale, and collaboration.

Sprint Review vs. Retrospective: Key Similarities & Differences

chart of differences and similarities of a sprint review vs a retrospective

Key Similarities Between Sprint Reviews and Sprint Retrospectives

Sprint review and sprint retrospective meetings have the following similarities:

  • Both are part of the scrum framework
  • Both share a goal of continuous improvement

Key Differences Between Sprint Reviews and Sprint Retrospectives

Sprint review and sprint retrospective meetings have the following differences:

  • Focus
  • Outcome
  • Participants
  • Frequency

Focus: The major difference between a sprint review and a sprint retrospective is their focus. In a sprint review, the goal is to improve the product, while in a sprint retrospective, the goal is to improve the process. 

Outcome: A sprint review results in a shared understanding of product progress and feedback collection on completed work. On the other hand, a sprint retrospective results in improvements to the scrum process and team collaboration. 

Participants: Sprint reviews can include the scrum team and applicable stakeholders, while only the scrum team attends a sprint retrospective.

Frequency: Sprint reviews occur at the end of each sprint. Conversely, sprint retrospectives vary in frequency. Some scrum teams hold sprint retrospectives at the end of each sprint (after the sprint review), while other teams may only schedule a retrospective every two or three months.

Conclusion

two icons - one of people icons inside circles and the other a bar graph going up

Sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives are essential scrum events that help improve a team’s product and process. While both types of meetings encourage feedback and collaboration, there are differences in focus, outcome, participants, and frequency. 

Get more out of your team’s sprint reviews and retrospectives with our Agile Team Facilitation certification course. You’ll walk away with facilitation techniques to foster collaboration and team-building to apply in and outside scrum events. Read through the Agile Team Facilitation Learning outcomes to learn more.

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TAGGED AS:
Agile Fundamentals, Agile Team Facilitation

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