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
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Sprint Planning
workday workday
(4 HRS) 5%

Backlog Team
½ workday
Grooming workday Estimation workday
Artifact Review
(1 HR) (1 HR)
Backlog Sprint 2
Sprint Demo/
Grooming Planning (4
Retrospective
(1 HR) HRS) 5%

- GOAL: prepare stories for upcoming sprints

- Low-fi UI prototyping
- story mapping
- Release planning
- T-shirt sizing
- Scenarios/acceptance criteria
Whole Team!
It’s Not Extra Work...It’s THE Work
Backlog
Impact of NOT Grooming Grooming Outcome when you DO
The backlog Groom the backlog

Looong and
inefficient sprint Shared
planning understanding

Loooong and
inefficient standups Earlier feedback

PANIC!
Missing sprint Realistic sprint
commitments commitments

You build the wrong You build the right

thing thing
 How To Get Started
Agree right now on where and when your team will do it

START DOING IT

BUT HOW??!?
Tune your
Try it for a
Set a Goal for Involve the process
couple of
the first Session whole team through
weeks
retrospectives
 Techniques for Grooming the Backlog
1) Product Visioning (WHAT) 2) Prioritization (WHEN)
- Prune the product tree - Buy a feature
- Ideation - Sliding scale
- Story mapping - Kano model
- Theme screening/scoring

Backlog
Grooming
3) Sprint Preparation (HOW)
- Story mapping (features)
- Low-fi prototyping Use 5% of your sprint capacity to
- Design shop get ready for the next sprint
- Paper prototypes
- Scenarios, BDD, ATDD
- Walk the dog
Keep Your Tree Pruned!