Demos and Scheduling

So my peer in the other group is trying to to schedule his first demo. He solicited some advice from me on how to have the demo be useful and get good responses from the stake holders. Well isn't that just The Question when it comes to demos.

They've had to put off doing their demo until next week because he can't get everyone set up for a meeting. And he's not sure anyone will give good feedback. Here's my feelings.

• Don't expect wonderful feedback the first time. These are people who are used to status reports, not interactive meetings where they can influence current development decisions.
• Don't worry about the stake holders getting/giving value from the meeting. The development group gets tons of value just by being forced to honestly integrate the code and cross check what they did against the sprint goals.
• Don't reschedule your demo meeting except in extremely rare scenarios. If someone feels they're too important/busy to make the product demo meeting they're not going to give good feedback anyway. Our product owner lives and works on the opposite end of the country. I stopped even caring if she made the meetings and found a local agent to function as a stand in for her. But do invite (that's the old CYA behavior speaking).
• Do bring a checklist of sprint goals into the meeting. Check them off as the developers demo each item. Bring this checklist to the sprint retrospective.
• Do have your retrospective shortly after the demo meeting. As in half-hour break, then do it. That way it will be fresh in everyone's mind for discussion. After the retrospective, close the book on that sprint and move on to the next.