How to Use Demo Days to Stay on Track

When I was running the product team at Symantec responsible for building a new IT Service Desk product, one of the best things we ever did was put in place a regular demo day with the product owners / managers / stakeholders. Each Friday we’d have a web meeting where anyone who was interested in the project could join and review the work of the previous week.

Getting your development team into the habit of regularly demonstrating their progress is invaluable in keeping development on track and eliminating costly misunderstandings.

How It Works

Create a set time on your weekly calendar where you pause for 30 minutes or an hour to do a run through of the latest work from each developer. Invite everyone involved in creating and selling the product to attend, knowing that not everyone will be able to make it to each meeting.  For each feature being reviewed, you’ll want to cover:

  • Does the work being presented align with the original designs and concept?
  • Is there anything we’d like to change now that we see it working as designed?
  • Are we still on schedule to hit the dates for the feature?

The work you’ll see will at times be very early. Encourage your developers to share freely, and don’t be critical of look and feel if you’re not at the polish stage of evaluation.

Running the Meeting

Here’s a few tips for making the Demo Day meeting itself productive

  • Make the Demo Day open to everyone at the company, but make it clear who has a voice at the meeting
  • Make sure you have assigned someone the responsibility of taking notes on all the feedback. If possible, record at least the audio from the meeting so that you can review it later
  • Post the notes from the meeting, as well as action steps that resulted, where everyone who attended can review and comment
  • Keep the meeting positive. Anyone can sit back and shoot holes in what’s being shown. Make sure everyone understands the “Yes, and” form of feedback, and that you don’t have one person dominating the room

Just Remember

  • Weekly Demo Days provide a venue for all stakeholders to review product progress
  • Catching mistakes or bad designs early saves you time and money
  • Demo days should be short and only for the purpose of reviewing progress
  • Make it clear to everyone that the work can and will be in a rough draft state

Your Assignment

If you’re not currently using Demo Days at your company, what would it take to put them in place? Find 30 minutes toward the end of the week (Friday afternoons work great in my experience) and schedule your first Demo Day. As you get into a regular cadence, adjust the timing and duration of the meeting to best meet everyone’s needs.

For more reading on how to implement a successful peer review process, I highly encourage you to read Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull, in particular the section on the Brain Trust.