Backlog Refinement
Backlog Refinement is a great bolt-on for Scrum teams and it is easy to miss some of the subtle benefits. In this short piece we explore: What is it? Why do we do it? What would make it good? How will we know if it’s helping?
What is it?
For Agile teams, Backlog Refinement is a regular event or a session where they come together to discuss goals and priorities and refine what they might do to achieve them.
We might start with goals or strategic objectives, or if these are understood then we might go straight to the Product Backlog Items (PBI’s) that will help the team to achive the goals. These will usually be brought and explained by the Product Owner or someone operating from that space.
In essence PBI’s are discussed so that they are understood, and potentially split or broken down, estimated if that is useful for the team, and ordered to align on priority.
To do this, teams use a variety of techniques to help with this process, these include: 3 Amigos, Story Mapping, Feature Mapping, Story Splitting, and Defining Acceptance Criteria.
Why do we do it?
The tangible product of the session is that we have a backlog where we maintain a sprint or two’s worth of work that the team is aligned on and where we have identified questions that we need to answer before we start or complete the work in question.
What we want to avoid is a backlog where we try to lock-down or refine items stretching too far into the future in too much detail. This reduces our inclination to explore, learn, and change as we go.
At the other end of the spectrum, if we have no items refined then we are increasing the risk that work will not flow as smoothly, effectively and to the desired level of quality through the team. This situation also means that the team has a lower awareness of how they might achieve their goals and increases the chance that they work on lower value PBI’s.
Teams will often experiment to find the sweet spot in terms of how refining their backlog will help them.
The less tangible benefits include:
Team consensus and knowledge sharing: By discussing these items as a team, we are spreading knowledge across the team, reducing the likelihood of bottlenecks. We also develop our shared understanding of our potential, our customers’ problems and what good looks like in our context.
Improved quality and engagement: By creating a space where a diverse team can share their ideas, we increase the quality of our products and build engagement across the team. This is the bedrock of being a team.
Nurturing product development: Refinement is an ongoing process as well as an event. Some PBI’s might be refined easily in a single conversation, more complex challenges are likely to throw up the need to answer questions or run spikes. By revisiting PBI’s over a period of weeks we create the conditions where the whole team is thinking of these ideas behind the scenes, and we are likely to get better ideas than if we leave the thinking to one person or if we force the thinking to conclude in a single event.
Smaller, focused meetings: Regular refinement encourages us to run better meetings. Developing the habit of having a refined backlog that we all understand enables us to have shorter planning sessions and more alignment on our goals and purpose.
What will make it good?
Learning – About our users, customers or stakeholders, about our opportunities, what our colleagues think, about our personal biases, about our blind spots
Alignment – With the team on the way forward and the options we have on how to address our challenges.
Engagement and Diverse Thinking – When the whole team engages in discussion and volunteers ideas, we know that we are creating the environment where people feel safe to share and they are bringing their experience to bear for the benefit of the team.
Questions – Identifying areas to explore where we thought we knew the answer or hadn’t explored
Shared Knowledge – Over time we develop our team awareness of our business context, our technical options and approaches, and how our preferred approaches serve us and our stakeholders
Confidence – In our team that we are on the same page for what quality means and that we have picked the best ideas for our context
Progress – Knowing that by the end of the session we have built understanding, knowledge, and alignment across the team or raised questions that will do so.
How will you know if it is helping?
So, this section really has to be for you…
Reflecting on your team, what would you notice if Backlog Refinement is living up to its potential?
What would you notice in the team or across your stakeholders?
What would you look out for if it is not helping?
What might you notice if we are not getting as much benefit from the session as possible in the long and short term?
Of course refinement is only one option, what alternatives are you experimenting with and what are the benefits and drawbacks of those?