ForeFront Agile Series
Essential Tips for Backlog Grooming: Part 2
Happy New Year! We kicked off 2017 with our Agile blog post series.
P.S. If you haven’t already, check out part 1 for more helpful hints. Now, on to part 2!
Tip #6: Bring Enough Stories (Work) to Last About 2 Sprints Beyond the Current Active Sprint
The reason for bringing this much work to the meeting is two-fold:
- Often times, Stories will be de-prioritized based on feedback in the meeting. One common reason being external dependencies, or coordination with another group outside the team.
- Opportunistic Value – Having finely refined Stories beyond the active Sprint can be handy when someone frees up time or needs more work and you want to pull new Stories into the active Sprint.
Tip #7: Don’t be Afraid to Introduce Late Breaking Stories
Of course try to minimize them, but embrace them when they happen. Always remember to remain Agile! Some of the major goals around doing backlog grooming are to reduce unknowns and risks, but not all risks are easily identifiable beforehand. Backlog grooming is not meant to eliminate risks, only to minimize them. Late breaking Stories will probably still happen (hopefully rarely) and should generally be welcomed by the team. On the other hand, if it seems like most of your backlog items are late breaking, that is generally a bad sign.
Tip#8: Team Estimates are not “Final” Until the Story has Been Accepted into a Sprint
Since the team is getting a preview of the Stories, try to make sure they don’t worry too much about the estimates. Let them know that a Stories estimate is not final until the Story has been accepted into the sprint. If someone comes up with new information or the Story changes in a relevant way between the backlog grooming and the Sprint Planning Meeting, they are free to bring it up and re-estimate the Story.
Tip #9: Split Stories During Grooming
Use rough estimates to identify the need to split a Story. A perfect time to do this is during a grooming session. The PO will want to indicate the priority of the split stories (remember not all stories are split equally). In turn, the team will want to estimate them each independently.
Tip #10: Assign Action Items for Any Big Risks or Unknowns
For big requirements issues, this probably means assigning the issue to the PO. For big technology risks or unknowns, this means assigning a development team member to research the issue at hand. The person(s) assigned should be ready to report on the action item at or before the next Backlog Grooming and definitely before (or at) the next relevant Sprint Planning. This will usually involve re-estimating the items based on the new information.
That’s all folks. Remember that following true Agile methodology and best practices must come with strong communication, governance, and clearly defined business outcomes. This fosters a more cohesive team environment and effective results.
