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Hi,

I was going through Scrum Guide and on page number 7 on Scrum Events , it is written that each event in Scrum is a formal opportunity to inspect and adapt something.

But when going through Sprint review event , it is written that it is an informal meeting.

I am confused can someone help me sorting this.

The Sprint Review is formal in the sense that it is part of doing Scrum. It is an essential part of inspecting the increment and deciding what to do next.
It is informal in the sense that it is not about slick presentations and showing abstractions of what could have been done. It is about showing working product on whatever machine it runs in whatever state the software is in.

Hope this helps.
Cesario | PST

+1 to Cesario's answer. The wording in the Scrum Guide is slightly unfortunate.

Scrum meetings are best kept informal. It's the opportunities to improve that are formally encouraged.

Scrum meetings are best kept informal. It's the opportunities to improve that are formally encouraged.

+1 to what Ian said, and I'll add that is very important that the objectives for each Scrum event/meeting be met. The Scrum Guide describes the expected outcomes from each of the events. If you are not reaching those outcomes, then there may be a "leak" in your Scrum implementation that can have bad consequences.

For instance, at one company, they were doing everything Scrummy, except one thing. They failed to invite their stakeholders and customers to their Sprint Reviews. When those stakeholders were finally shown the product after several sprints, the stakeholders cancelled the project immediately. They had a leak, and the leak proved fatal in that case.

That's right, Sprint reviews are more about demoing actual working software rather than a power point presentation though you need a good presenter to keep involved all attendees in the demo. Also teams should be more vocal during the sprint review as there are chances that a team may want to demo a tool which is more of technical people and other teams for future use e.g. automation.

There are chances that the actual users of your product may not be available for sprint review but you should try to get as much feedback as you can from your product managers, sales team etc..