Grooming Your Product Backlog

Are You Done Yet?

You said you’d be done by now…

WTF?!?!?!?!

*image courtesy of http://www.buildsonmymachine.com/

Why Are We Having These “Done” Conversations?

Sprint work isn’t done

What’s contributing to the problem?

This Works

Sprint Planning (4 HRS) 5% workday workday

Backlog Grooming

(1 HR)workday

Team Estimation

(1 HR)workday ½ workday

Artifact Review

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

- GOAL: prepare stories for upcoming sprints- Low-fi UI prototyping- story mapping- Release planning- T-shirt sizing- Scenarios/acceptance criteria

Whole Team!

Sprint 2 Planning (4

HRS) 5%

Sprint Demo/Retrospective

Backlog Grooming

(1 HR)

It’s Not Extra Work...It’s THE Work

Backlog GroomingOutcome when you DOGroom the backlog

Impact of NOT GroomingThe backlog

Looong and inefficient sprint

planning

Loooong and inefficient standups

Missing sprint commitments

You build the wrong thing

Shared understanding

Earlier feedback

Realistic sprint commitments

You build the right thing

PANIC!

How To Get Started

Agree right now on where and when your team will do it

START DOING IT

Set a Goal for the first Session

Involve the whole team

Try it for a couple of

weeks

Tune your process through

retrospectives

BUT HOW??!?

Techniques for Grooming the Backlog

Backlog Grooming

1) Product Visioning (WHAT)- Prune the product tree- Ideation- Story mapping

3) Sprint Preparation (HOW)- Story mapping (features)- Low-fi prototyping

- Design shop- Paper prototypes

- Scenarios, BDD, ATDD- Walk the dog

2) Prioritization (WHEN)- Buy a feature- Sliding scale- Kano model- Theme screening/scoring

Use 5% of your sprint capacity to get ready for the next sprint

Keep Your Tree Pruned!