Demo’s are incredibly powerful tools in any software development shop. And they’re a key tool for you as a technical leader. Demoing what you’ve done can provide a ton of value to your team, and help you lead more effectively. Here’s why.

I like to think of demos as what Joel S. means in #12 of his “Joel Test” for good software development practices. Hallway testing is demoing what you’ve done for the average person, and see how it goes over. Is it intuitive? Is it usable? Continuously demoing what you’ve done puts it under the routine sunshine of other people’s opinion. Many folks are afraid to hear that feedback. If you’re writing software for someone other than yourself, you may as well know sooner rather than later what they think. Demo it.

Doing a demo of what you’ve been working on holds you accountable to deliver something. Back to the idea that “doing beats talking” the way you get your work in front of folks is show them. It demystifies everything and shows that something has been done. It may pierce the veil of “too hard for this team” or just provide a starting point of real tangible work from ideas and white board. If you’re trying to get a point across of something you want folks to do, don’t just continue to use words. Demo it.

Doing demos in the daily standup is something that I’ve gotten away from in recent years. I’ve focused the morning stand-up intent on communication to one another. And I think there are still good reasons to work in a demo of what you’ve done as a team on a regular basis. Maybe it’s not daily. Maybe weekly. Or maybe a couple times a week. Demoing what the team has done can create the pride of completion of the work in an iteration, and it’s great to show off the progress of what’s happening within the iteration to gain better cross-team pollination on what’s happening. If you’re not switching story ownership mid-stream to cross pollinate this is a great way to share what’s being done while it’s being done. Demo it.

One of your jobs as a technical leader is communication. You need to continue to be good at communication in order to lead. It’s a fundamental skill. It’s one of Steve McConnell’s seven unbreakable rules of software leadership to become a student of communication. When your leadership is around software, being practiced at demoing software is important. It’s a part of your communication. If you’re communicating about software, then use the software. Demo it.

When the iteration is complete, the entire team is successful. You completed what you committed to completing. The team is probably going to do a retrospective to look back and see what worked and what didn’t. Don’t lose sight of the celebration of the successful iteration. Celebrate that the team worked together and fulfilled the commitment. One of the best ways to celebrate and revel in your success? Yep, demo it.

Demos are powerful things for lots of reasons. They’re a staple for software development. Development you’ve done, your team has done or you want to inspire your team to do. Look for every opportunity to demo your software to all sorts of audiences and become practiced in the art of the demo.