Product backlog refinement is

Scrum Teams do it all the time. It happens in Sprint Review, after Daily Scrum, in Sprint Planning, and as part of development. They discuss the upcoming work to gain a shared understanding. This discussion includes: • clarifying the deliverables resulting from the work • breaking down the work so that the individual pieces still provide value when completed • ordering the work in the Product Backlog so that the goals of the Scrum Team and the organization are best achieved • adding new work to the Product Backlog that needs to be done to the product and remove redundant work • eliminating dependencies within the work • estimating the work in size and value • understanding the assumptions in the work So, it's all about the future work expressed as Product Backlog items in the Product Backlog. Barry Overeem refers to these items as reminders of conversations that need to happen in the future. Refinement is simply the ongoing activity of having these conversations and thus an essential product management activity. Why is Product Backlog refinement needed? In refinement, Product Backlog items are discussed until a shared understanding is reached. Items are broken down until the Developers are fairly confident that they can complete them within a Sprint. This gives the Product Backlog a level of transparency that reduces the risk. The risk is exposed by not completing an item within a Sprint and thus giving away the opportunity to generate value for the organization. That is w...

A product backlog represents all of the goals and desired outcomes within the development of a product. They are the specific tasks a team hopes to complete when they set out to design or improve upon a product. What makes a product backlog so effective is its agile nature. Backlogs are in constant evolution, changing and adapting based on the current needs of stakeholders and customers. To keep a backlog up-to-date and in its most effective form, it needs to be continuously refined and adapted. This process takes time, but there are simple, powerful strategies for maintaining a quality backlog. A good product backlog has four characteristics. It is: • Detailed appropriately • Estimated • Emergent • Prioritized We’ll cover all of these attributes in detail, including how you can ensure your product backlog is in good health. But first, let’s get on the same page about product backlogs and the refinement process. Transform your flat product backlog with Easy Agile TeamRhythm What is a product backlog? A product backlog is a prioritized and ordered list that represents the work to be completed by a development team. Backlog items are derived from the product roadmap and are organized based on the tasks that are most vital — the ones that will make the biggest impact at any given time. Backlog items represent what it will take to develop a new product or improve an existing one with new features. It’s all of the work a team will tackle in the future, but it’s also a flexible,...

Learn About the Scrum Artifact: Product Backlog Product Backlog As described in the Product Backlog items that can be Done by the Scrum Team within one The Product Backlog Refinement Product Backlog refinement is the act of breaking down and further defining Product Backlog items into smaller more precise items. Refinement can occur at any time during a Sprint, in a more formal meeting or meetings, on an ongoing basis or as needed. Refinement is not mandatory, however it is a good practice to consider in order to increase transparency and make work items more precise. Commitment: Product Goal The A product is a vehicle to deliver value. It has a clear boundary, known stakeholders, well-defined users or customers. A product could be a service, a physical product, or something more abstract. The Product Goal is the long-term objective for the Scrum Team. They must fulfill (or abandon) one objective before taking on the next. What did you think about this content?

One of the most challenging activities in Scrum is Product Backlog Refinement. During training courses I get many questions on this activity. What do you do during Product Backlog refinement? How do you prevent discussions going off track or in too much detail? Who should be there? When do you estimate? In this blog series, you will get some good practices and guidelines for having better, more effective and more vivid Product Backlog refinement. This series will consist of three posts: • Before you bring an item into a meeting • What do you typically do during a meeting focusing on refinement? • Facilitating a meeting on Product Backlog refinement ‘Ready state’ The goal of Product Backlog refinement is to work with the Scrum Team and stakeholders (when relevant), to get Product Backlog items in a ‘ready state’. What does this mean? This basically means that the development team has the idea that an item is: • Clear enough, so they understand what stakeholders are asking for and why they are asking for it. • Small enough, so the items should be small enough to get done within a sprint (typically a few days of work) to comply with the definition of done. This activity is all about interaction between the Product Owner, Development Team and stakeholders. If you were expecting a blueprint for a ‘ready’ item you clearly need to do some homework on agility. When an item is ready depends on many different aspects like experience of the Scrum Team or knowledge about the product. ...

Product Backlog Refinement Approach • Top-down (Prepare the context of the product) – Start with the Product Goal, Product Vision, and supporting documentation like the Business Case to populate the Product Backlog. Focusing on what will resolve current business issues in the next Sprint is the key. Create the product roadmap, show how the features and the user stories fit into the product roadmap • Story Mapping – Examine the context and the steps required for a user to complete an activity. Break each activity into Stories. Order the user stories and features based on the highest business value always on top. • Investigations & experiments – After a formal, collaborative Backlog Refinement session, the Team members identify key areas in which to do some analysis, investigation, and R&D. The goal of the activity should be clear and timeboxed with the outcome explicitly reported to the Team and recorded against the Product Backlog item. No actual work should be undertaken to progress a Story. • Design Spikes (options analysis) – After a formal, collaborative Backlog Refinement session, the Team identifies which future Stories have significant unknowns and several potential ways of implementing them. These are targeted for a timeboxed options analysis with the results brought back and discussed with the Team at the next Backlog Refinement or future Sprint Planning session. • Cynefin – Using the Cynefin sense framework, the Team assesses whether Stories are ‘simple’, ‘compli...

✕ • Products • Nimble • Nimble OKR • Slack OKRs • Nimble Agile • Nimble Hybrid • Nimble Retro • Nimble Work Management • Nimble Enterprise • kAIron • Get Started • SwiftKanban • Free Trial • Solutions • Marketing • HR • Sales • Project Work Management • Cloud Migration • Services • Customer Support • Professional Services • Training and Consulting • Customers • Success Stories • Resources • Learn • Webinars • Newsletters • News & Events • Blog • Login • Free Trial

Product Backlog Refinement is an important event in Scrum methodology that occurs regularly throughout the development cycle. During refinement, the team discusses each item, clarifies its requirements, and assesses its priority and complexity, leading to a more clearly defined and actionable backlog. By regularly refining the backlog, the team can ensure that the development process remains agile and responsive to changing needs and priorities. Let us dive more to understand backlog refinement, objectives of product backlog meetings, and more through our blog. What is Backlog Refinement? Product Backlog Refinement also referred to as Product Backlog Grooming, is a method for keeping the backlog updated, clean and orderly. It is a basic process in Scrum. PBR is a collaborative discussion process that starts at the end of one sprint to confirm whether the backlog is ready for the next sprint. Let's take a pause and read about A backlog can be defined as a set of user stories that are not present in the current sprint that defines the project’s scope context. The stories which are left unattended may interfere with the functioning of the development team. When this happens, the status of user stories will not be clear, and even the team can lose focus and fail to deliver within the project completion date. The backlog grooming meeting is attended by the • How to handle the situation if the user enters invalid data? • Which part of the system are the users authorized to opera...

In this article Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018 A great backlog conveys customer needs and value. Over the course of the project, your team will add detailed information to each backlog item, break them down into smaller items, prioritize, and estimate them, and finally, implement them and deliver the results to your customers. To get started, see Role of the product owner Product owners play an important role in Scrum, primarily as the interface between customers and the team. To enable product owners to fulfill the following responsibilities, they need to be added to the Contributors group. • Analyzing customer requirements and express them as user stories, features, or requirements • Building, prioritizing, and refining the product backlog • Representing customer and stakeholder requirements to the team and responding to questions your team has about them • Meeting regularly with stakeholders to address their needs and keep them informed • Helping stakeholders understand the decisions underlying the priority order of your backlog • Responding to all requests from your team for more information concerning backlog priorities and requirements If they'll also be responsible for configuring team settings, A product owner can reduce the need for detailed specifications by being more responsive to the team's questions about implementation details and clearly expressing acceptance criteria within each requirement. Acceptanc...