(The iteration demo)

Jim Shore has put up yet another text from his upcoming book ("The Art of Agile Development") for review on his blog. This time he talks about the iteration demo: A live demonstration of what has been accomplished during the last iteration, that can be attended by anyone that is interested. Jim describes the demo as a "way to keep the momentum going" and lists three purposes to the iteration demo: (1) Demonstrating progress, (2) keeping the team honest about progress and (3) soliciting feedback from interested parties and stakeholders.

I feel that an essential benefit of the iteration demo is how it portrays progress and instills the feeling of momentum in the team. Agile development can actually suffer from the way progress is flows in tiny increments, making it difficult for developers to perceive the speed and momentum of the progress. This may make the team feel that there is little momentum and that little happens - since everything evolves so incrementally. It's like when you watch some slow movement, such as watching clouds on a calm day, trying to discern what direction they are moving in with no fixed reference point: It is not immediately apparent.

However, to someone outside the project, the progress made over one week is obvious, since (presumably) a great deal has happened since the last reference point (the last review of the product). Again, if one were to mount a camera at the sky and take pictures at longer intervals, movement would be immediately obvious.

When an outside stakeholder reviews progress, there is commonly a strong positive reaction - "wow, all of this has been created since last time? Cool!" When developers see this emotion, it is "transferred" to them - they effectively experience the feeling of momentum and progress via the reviewers of the demonstration.

The negative effect of *not* perceiving progress and the momentum of a project is great - a project that is taking great strides forward feels successful, and causes team members to be substantially more productive. The iteration demo is a device that allows a team to get that valuable feeling and productivity.