Tips on doing show & tell well

What is a show & tell?

A show & tell is a regular get-together where people working on a product or service celebrate their work, talk about what they’ve learned, and get feedback from their peers.

It’s also a chance to

A show & tell may be internal, limited to other people in the same team or organisation, or open to anyone to join. Most teams start with an internal show & tell and make these open later.

A show & tell might also be called a team review.

How to run a great show & tell

  1. Don’t make it up on the spot
    Spend time as a team working out what you want to say and who is going to share stories with the audience (1 or 2 people works best). 30 to 60 minutes of prep will pay off.

  2. Set the scene
    Always introduce your project or epic. Who’s on the team? What are you working on? What problem are you solving? Who are your users? Why are you doing it? You don’t need to tell the full history, a 30-second overview is enough.

  3. Show the thing!
    Scrappy diagrams, Mural boards, Post-it notes, screenshots, scribbles, photos, and clicking through prototypes bring things to life. Text and code is OK, but always aim to demonstrate something working – don’t just talk through a doc or some function.

  4. Talk about what you’ve learned
    Share which assumptions turned out to be incorrect, or what facts surprised you. Show clips from user research and usability testing. Highlight important analytics data or performance measures. Share both findings and insights. Be clear on the methodology and any confidence intervals, levels of confidence, risky assumptions, etc.

  5. Be clear

Don’t hide behind jargon. Make bold statements. Say what you actually think! This helps everyone concentrate on the main point, and it generates discussion.

  1. Always share unfinished thinking
    Forget about the polish and perfection. A show & tell is the perfect place to collect feedback, ideas and thoughts. It’s a complicated space. We’re all trying to figure it out!

  2. Rehearse
    Take 10–15 minutes to rehearse your section with your team to work out whether you need to cut anything. If you’re struggling to edit, use a format like What? So what? Now what? to keep things concise. If you take up more time than you’ve been given, it’ll eat into other people’s section meaning they have to rush (or not share at all) which isn’t fair.

  3. Leave time for questions
    The best show & tells have audience participation. Wherever possible, leave time for questions – either after each team or at the end. Encourage people to ask questions in the chat, on Slack, in docs, etc.

If you do nothing else, follow tip number 3.

You can read more tips on good show & tells from Mark Dalgarno, Emily Webber and Alan Wright.

How to be a great show & tell audience member

  1. Be present and listen
    There’s nothing worse than preparing for a show & tell only to realise that no one’s paying attention. Close Slack, close Teams, stop looking at email, and give your full attention to your team-mates.

  2. Smile, use emojis, and celebrate!
    Bring the good vibes and lift each other up whenever there’s something worth celebrating.

It’s ok to be halfway done

The main thing to remember is that show & tell is not just about sharing progress and successes. It’s a time to talk about what’s hard and what didn’t work too.

It’s ok to be halfway done. It’s ok to go back to the drawing board.

Each sprint, try to answer these questions in your show & tell:

· sprint review, show and tell, working in the open, agile