The first part of every sprint review is a demo of your app to the customer, which in SDP is represented by the coaches. Your demo must be aimed at customers, even though SDP coaches also play a more technical role in other parts of the course. Your demo must be from scratch, even though SDP coaches also track your progress in other parts of the course.
The first thing you need is a working app every week. It's important that it works, even if it has reduced functionality. You should do a demo with whatever functionality you have, even in the first few weeks of the semester.
Start with an elevator pitch: if you walked into an elevator and met someone who you'd like to turn into a customer, what could you say in the time of an elevator ride to convince that person? You must answer three key questions: Who is the app for? What does it do? Why is it needed? Answer these questions in 30-60 seconds, in a way that convinces the listener to give you more time. This is not a sales pitch; the goal is not to sell your app or services.
After the elevator pitch, demo your app: show how users can benefit from your app by demoing the key features to them. You must have a clear and concise story that makes users in your target demographic want to download and use your app. Do this in at most 5 minutes, preferably less, in a way that keeps the users interested throughout. This is not a tour of all of your app's features, only a user story that has your app as key companion.
Examples of good demo stories:
Imagine you are in town and you have half an hour to kill until your next commitment. You take out your phone and look to see if there are any friends around, using OurApp. Aha! There is one. You message him ...
You just started a new course, and you need a textbook for it. But you'd rather get a second-hand one if possible, to save money. You take out your phone and search the textbook name in OurApp. Someone is selling exactly the book you need! You make an offer ...
Example of bad demo stories:
Here you see the main menu of OurApp, which allows you to find friends, determine where they are located, and send them messages. You can log in by pressing this button, which prompts you for your email ...
Last week OurApp could search for textbooks by name. As you can see, this week we added searching by course as well. In this details screen here, we fixed the bug related to pictures, they are no longer rotated. Also ...
The #1 rule of demos is that they don't work. Avoid enforcing the rule! A successful demo requires that you rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. Please come prepared, and don't squander your chance to show off the app. Think ahead of time of what might go wrong. Will you show directly the screen of the phone, or will you project on another screen? How will the lighting be? Will you allow your audience to interact with the app? Do you require network connectivity? GPS? ...
Any app has "boring" parts that must be done but aren't the focus of the app, such as logging in. Avoid these parts in your demo, as they take time but do not add value:
- Log in before you start the demo.
- If you need to type some long text as part of your demo, type it beforehand in another app and copy it, so all you have to do is paste it.
Every member of the team must pitch and demo the app at least once during the semester. If you think that doing this is not your cup of tea, please watch this talk.