The scenario:

It's sprint review day! Your teams have been working all sprint to deliver on the stories that have been handed down by your Delivery Stream and now you're up front with your team sitting panel style like the rest of the other Release Trains getting questions about your stories by SVP's and other senior leadership.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Let’s break this down so we getting a clear understanding of why this scenario falls into the land of bad systems.

"Your teams have been working all sprint to deliver on the stories that have been handed down by your Delivery Stream..."

In SAFE, the Delivery stream is focused on the development of Epic initiatives. Their role is there to ensure that the big picture is well defined and Release teams below have the information needed to ensure that the right features are built at the right time that meet the outcomes of the Epic. In a culture of trust, their work ends there. They shouldn’t be concerned with what stories are done in which order. This is clearly laid out in the 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto which states “Give them (the team) the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.“

"...now you're up front with your team sitting panel style like the rest of the other Release Trains..."

Again, the Manifesto states that “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.” This just doesn’t apply to architecture, requirements, and design. This applies to how teams organize to share their learnings, their win, and their failures which is the primary goal of the review.

"...getting questions about your stories by SVP's and and other senior leadership."

This is also referenced in the Manifesto, “Give them (the team) the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” These stakeholders should be focused on the finished outcomes of the feature and epics.

What bad things can happen?

A perceived lack of trust has major implications for quality of work. When teams further up the funnel aren’t focused on their areas of ownership, the quality of the work is impacted. When that added pressure is pushed downwards to other teams, they are not focused on delivering valuable outcomes because they are busy focused on defining the outcomes.

Reframing the scenario

A better approach to this scenario would be:

It's sprint review day! Your teams have been working all sprint to deliver on the valuable outcomes stories that have been extrapolated from a well formed feature. Now you're up front with your team excited to show this work and the learnings they discovered along the way to their immediate stakeholders and other teams whom might be interested in learning more.

The difference? None of the above is prescriptive. It’s about sharing their wins and losses with immediate stakeholders and others who have interest in what value was delivered.