About the backlog grooming activities

Teams that have just started to try scrum tend to encounter the problem that the Sprint planning meeting is a long time to meet. I have seen a situation like this: a two-week sprint, the Sprint planning meeting opened a full day, the day is not complete, night overtime to open.
So why does this happen? Where is the time spent mainly? Through observation, I found that most of the time consumed in the discussion of user stories, specifically, the user story of the business, interface and interaction, as well as technical implementation of the program and test points of discussion.

When it comes to scrum, the industry often mentions only "343", that is,--3 characters, 4 activities and 3 products. But in practice, we find that another activity needs to be introduced, which is the backlog grooming activity. If a backlog grooming activity is not introduced, Sprint planning meetings tend to be heavily timed out, and in the case of backlog grooming, sprint planning meetings can often be controlled within the time box.

What is a backlog grooming activity?
The backlog grooming activity is a refinement, estimation, and prioritization of the stories that might be included in the sprint before the next sprint begins.

WHO participates in backlog grooming activities?
PO, SM, and team should all be involved, and SM is the organizer of the event.

When do I start a backlog grooming campaign?
In this sprint, complete the backlog of the next sprint to ensure that the next sprint story conforms to the invest principle before the Sprint planning meeting starts.
In practice, we find that the backlog is often met with problems that cannot be identified on the spot, so it is not expected to complete the backlog through a meeting, a better practice is to spend some time every day to do the backlog comb.

How to carry out the backlog grooming activities?
In practice, we collate the backlog combing five steps, as follows:

①po and the team discuss the background of user stories, business objectives, user roles, user scenarios, business processes, and business rules to ensure that the team understands and has no objection.

②po and the team discuss the interface and interaction processes, drawing a low-fidelity and interactive flow.

③po and the team discuss the test points of the user story, technical implementation plans, possible technical risks, must output test points (i.e. acceptance criteria), the test point form is not limited (it is recommended to write directly on the back of the story card, so as to facilitate viewing).

• These can be divided into the following three processes:

1) PO and a senior tester to discuss and collate the test points.
2) PO communicates with the entire development team the test points of the user story.
3) Development team to discuss the initial technical implementation of the program, technical risks.

• Some of the considerations:

1) First prepare the test points, to avoid a group of people sitting together from 0 to start finishing.
2) The purpose of the preliminary technical implementation is to estimate, identify technology dependencies and technical risks, and the detailed technical implementation plan should be left to the sprint development.

The ④ team estimates the size of the user story (story points) and splits it into small stories for oversized user stories.

• These include the following procedures:

1) PO First and SM, the user story to make a preliminary estimate and split, in order to make the next release version of the sprint planning.
2) for the next sprint to use the story, SM organization developers estimate the scale of development, the organization testers estimate the scale of testing, and then centralized integration.

• Some of the considerations:

1) in order to make a release version of the sprint planning, the initial estimate is needed, the activity does not require the entire development team to participate, only a small number of core personnel to participate.

⑤po priority for user stories. (Create a User story card in the product backlog, priority in order)

• The priority of the queue requires only the PO decision, and no one else is required to participate.
• The reason for this is that the size, technical dependencies, and technical risks of the user story are taken into account when prioritizing the ⑤.

This article was reproduced from: leangoo.com

About the backlog grooming activities