Sprint 1's Review Ceremony — Reviewing the Last Increment

Sprint Review — Looking Back at TR2

Before planning a new sprint, Scrum reviews the last one. This isn't a formality — it's why several things about this trimester look different from TR2, and it's worth understanding what changed and why before you start.

A note on this data: these themes come from informal, self-selected feedback — students who chose to email directly, likely more engaged than average. Treat it as directional signal, not a full picture. Names are intentionally left out.

What Worked — Keep Doing This

Strength

Teaching approach

Multiple independent students cited the Socratic "why" method and story-driven teaching as what most changed their confidence over the term — several went from not speaking up on day one to presenting without notes by the end. Corroborated separately by several students on presentation confidence specifically.

Strength

Real-world project framing

A stock-market project felt more meaningful than a made-up example to more than one student — the applied, practical structure was repeatedly preferred over theory-only assignments.

Strength

Assessment feedback quality

Detailed, actionable feedback on assessments and presentations was called out as a standout strength, independently, more than once.

What's Changing This Trimester

Changing

The weekend crunch

The most substantive critique: with data collection realistically starting Friday and wrapping by Sunday, teams were forced into a two-day rush instead of the daily iteration Scrum is meant to teach — some went through the motions of standups without practicing the real rhythm.

The fix — automated data collection now runs continuously, not tied to any single day. The target for finishing team review, scoring, and sealing moves earlier in the week, so the weekend becomes slack instead of crunch.

Changing

Figma wasn't built for this

Three independent, distinct critiques: no notifications or task management (became a static whiteboard, not a working board), access/onboarding friction disrupting early momentum, and required updates feeling like disconnected admin overhead rather than something supporting real progress.

The fix — Discord is being set up as the primary coordination tool this trimester, with Figma used for what it's actually good at rather than as a task tracker.

Changing

Assessment integrity — commit history can be gamed

Repos with no protection allow rewritten or backdated commit history, which undermines any grading that treats commit timestamps as evidence of sustained work.

The fix — this trimester's Architecture Constitution rule #5 ("a green checkmark is not proof of output") extends the same evidence standard to individual work: Sprint 1's own backlog now requires a verified commit, not just a claim of having read something.

Changing

Team formation and accountability

Random assignment carried real risk — some teams had members who never participated from the start, putting sustained pressure on the rest. A separate but related theme: individual grades leaning too heavily on group outcome meant low-contributing members received similar outcomes to those doing most of the work.

The fix — team formation is being treated as this sprint's actual deliverable rather than an administrative afterthought, with more visible per-member accountability going forward.

Changing

AI fluency gaps

Not every student was equally skilled at using AI for programming problem-solving — observed failure modes included sending screenshots instead of typed problems, letting conversations lose context, and not giving the AI real task details.

The fix — worth a brief, explicit call-out early this trimester rather than assuming it's already understood.