
What is backlog grooming in agile?
Backlog grooming, also referred to as backlog refinement or story time, is a recurring event for agile product development teams. The primary purpose of a backlog grooming session is to ensure the next few sprints worth of user stories in the product backlog are prepared for sprint planning.
What is grooming in Agile Scrum?
We may also refer to grooming as refinement. It is one of the primary steps in Agile Scrum. PO does it to maintain the backlog and to generate work for the next sprints. It is the activity where the PO and the team members discuss the items lying in the backlog.
What is grooming in Salesforce?
Grooming is an open discussion between the development team and product owner. The user stories are discussed to help the team gain a better understanding of the functionality that is needed to fulfill a story.
What is a sprint in agile?
A Sprint is an iteration of an Agile project. In other words, it is common for project teams to break Agile projects into short, repeatable phases. These phases typically last between one and four weeks. Each Sprint has a specific, measurable outcome. They should produce a draft, prototype, or workable version of the final deliverable.
What is grooming in Agile?
What is the purpose of Agile grooming?

What is sprint grooming vs planning?
Sprint planning meetings must be attended by the entire team, including product owners, whereas backlog grooming needs just a few team members. Sprint planning always happens at the beginning of a sprint, but backlog grooming sessions can happen at any stage in the product development process.
How does grooming work agile?
During grooming, Agile teams break the features into stories and split them further. After that, they perform estimation in story points, and the aim is to get to a reasonable estimate. It is also essential for the PO that he could provide enough work for the team to continue in next 3-4 sprints.
What grooming means Scrum?
Grooming (or refinement) is a meeting of the Scrum team in which the product backlog items are discussed and the next sprint planning is prepared. Product grooming is critical in product management because it means keeping the backlog up to date and getting backlog items ready for upcoming sprints.
What is sprint backlog Grooming?
Backlog grooming is a regular session where backlog items are discussed, reviewed, and prioritized by product managers, product owners, and the rest of the team. The primary goal of backlog grooming is to keep the backlog up-to-date and ensure that backlog items are prepared for upcoming sprints.
What is the purpose of sprint grooming?
Scrum Backlog Refinement (Grooming) Meetings aim to keep the Product Backlog up to date. So the Product Backlog reflects the best know-how and understanding of the Scrum team about the ongoing Scrum project.
When should you do sprint grooming?
It is good to conduct backlog grooming sessions two to three days before sprint cycle completion. The reasons to do so include: It helps track the team's progress to see if they would need another sprint cycle to complete what they are already working on. Prepare the team for the upcoming sprint cycle in advance.
What do we do in grooming meeting?
The primary purpose of a backlog grooming session is to ensure the next few sprints worth of user stories in the product backlog are prepared for sprint planning. Regular backlog grooming sessions also help ensure the right stories are prioritized and that the product backlog does not become a black hole.
What is Jira grooming?
What is Jira backlog grooming? It's the process of adding important context and estimates to backlog items as well as prioritizing them. First mentioned by Mike Cohn in 2005 and later polished by Kane Mar in 2008, backlog grooming was finally added as an official scrum element in 2011.
What are the 3 questions in daily scrum meeting?
During the daily scrum, each team member answers the following three questions: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? Are there any impediments in your way?
What are the 5 Scrum ceremonies?
There are five scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, daily standup, sprint review, sprint retrospective and product backlog grooming.
Who runs sprint refinement?
The Product Owner can refine items on the backlog at any time, in or outside a meeting. The Scrum Master and Development Team Members can also update items at any time. Usually under the direction of the Product Owner.
What happens in story grooming?
Before a story is ready for sprint planning, it needs to be “groomed.” With the product owner, the development team decides the sprint's goals, duration, and story points. The development team then chooses what should be prioritized in the sprint backlog.
What happens in user story grooming?
Backlog grooming, or backlog refinement, is the process of refining outstanding user stories or backlog items, breaking big items into smaller tasks, and prioritizing those which need to be tackled first. Together, this helps shape the next sprint session's objectives.
What is a groomed stories in agile?
Grooming is an open discussion between the development team and product owner. The user stories are discussed to help the team gain a better understanding of the functionality that is needed to fulfill a story. This includes design considerations, integrations, and expected user interactions.
How do you conduct a backlog grooming session?
Here are the essential tools in your grooming kit:Set a goal for each session to jell the team. ... Limit stakeholder involvement to keep the water running. ... Meet more frequently to stay fresh and for a short duration until the team gets adept at it. ... Set a story time limit to avoid fatigue.
What is the difference between backlog grooming and backlog refinement?
Backlog refinement (formerly known as backlog grooming) is when the product owner and some, or all, of the rest of the team review items on the backlog to ensure the backlog contains the appropriate items, that they are prioritized, and that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery.
Product Backlog Refinement (Grooming) in Agile
Product Backlog Characteristics This is what you should keep in mind during Product Backlog Refinement! Before you can finally prioritize or order the PBIs in the Product Backlog, you should have a feeling for the scope of the individual items, because this determines the costs, which in turn influence the priority.
What is grooming in software development?
Grooming is an open discussion between the development team and product owner. The user stories are discussed to help the team gain a better understanding of the functionality that is needed to fulfill a story. This includes design considerations, integrations, and expected user interactions.
How long does a grooming session last?
Grooming sessions occur weekly during the sprint (or development cycle) and typically last 1-2 hours. To learn more about grooming and how it fits in the agile software development process, download The Official Agile 101 Handbook by clicking the link below.
How does a team groom a product backlog?
Beyond grooming individual user stories, the team uses weekly grooming sessions in order to groom the product backlog. With the product owner, the team will review the backlog and see if there are any stories that need to be added or can be removed based on any iterations from the previous sprint. They will also want to re-assess the priority of the backlog and split user stories which are high priority but are too large to fit in an upcoming sprint. Changes in the product backlog can only be completed and approved by the product owner.
What is the Product Backlog Grooming or Refinement im Scrum?
Until a while ago, product backlog refinement in Scrum was called backlog gro oming. Backlog refinement is about maintaining and preparing the product backlog with its items and epics so that the Scrum team can use it as a basis for sprint planning.
Who sets the goal of the Sprint?
The Product Owner sets the goal of the Sprint (Outcome).
Why are sprint planning meetings shorter?
The Sprint Planning meetings become shorter, because now only the "how" of the implementation has to be discussed, since the "what" has been clarified by the refinement. In addition, the PBIs have ideally already been estimated by the team and can be drawn according to velocity. This avoids that not enough prepared PBIs are available in Sprint Planning.
What is the difference between sprint planning and prioritizing backlog items?
Traditionally, (1) prioritizing backlog items is the responsibility of the product owner , whereas (2) deciding how much to pull in the sprint is the development team’s decision. Both should be a discussion with the entire team, while the responsibilities (and the final say) stay with the respective roles. Sprint planning kicks off every sprint.
What is sprint planning?
Sprint planning consists of two main components: (1) prioritizing backlog items and (2) agreeing on the number of backlog items in the sprint based on team capacity.
What is the input for a sprint planning session?
The input for a sprint planning session is the product backlog. In order to make the meeting as effective as possible, the top of the backlog — the most important backlog items that should be tackled next — should be well “groomed” or rather “refined” ahead of time.
How to prevent disorganized sprints?
One way to prevent disorganized agile sprints is to maintain a healthy product backlog. It helps you keep track of all items that need to be completed during a project, including stories, tasks, sub-tasks, and any other details that help identify and complete features, improvements, or bug fixes. Items are entered into the backlog in the form of issues or tickets, depending on which agile project management system you use. In this article, we’ll discuss what a healthy backlog looks like, why backlog grooming is essential, and how to do it effectively.
How long is a backlog grooming meeting?
Grooming happens at defined intervals with meetings that last a minimum of 1 hour, typically only once per sprint. Grooming meetings should involve the whole team, but at the very least, product owners, team leads, and senior position members need to participate.
What is backlog refinement?
Backlog refinement is a team event that helps with the Scrum process. The goal of refinement is to dig into the backlog and make sure the team has enough information to work on upcoming stories.
Who Attends the Events?
Attendance at a backlog refinement event is ideally the entire Scrum Team, including the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and Development Team. There may also potentially be one or two stakeholders, if subject matter expertise is needed.
Preparation Before the Event
Before the backlog refinement session there needs to be some planning for it to be successful. The Product Owner has to look through the backlog and prioritize each of the items there. The highest priority items are what will be refined.
Time for backlog refinement
During the backlog refinement, you want to be sure a few key factors get tackled:
How long should backlog grooming take?
The general consensus around the ideal length for a backlog grooming session is between 45 minutes to 1 hour.
What is the definition of Backlog Grooming?
Backlog grooming, also referred to as backlog refinement or story time, is a recurring event for agile product development teams. The primary purpose of a backlog grooming session is to ensure the next few sprints worth of user stories in the product backlog are prepared for sprint planning. Regular backlog grooming sessions also help ensure the right stories are prioritized and that the product backlog does not become a black hole.
Why do you need backlog grooming sessions?
Regular backlog grooming sessions also help ensure the right stories are prioritized and that the product backlog does not become a black hole. Backlog refinement sessions present an opportunity for product managers and product owners to explain the strategic purposes behind prioritized items in the backlog.
Do you need to overhaul the roadmap every time you prepare for backlog grooming?
You don’t need to overhaul the entire roadmap every time you prepare for backlog grooming, but you do need to keep high-level objectives top of mind. Talk to Stakeholders: Regularly sync up with both internal (executives) and external stakeholders (customers) to get feedback.
What is grooming in Agile?
Grooming is the first of many events that occur in Agile methodology . It is also crucial from the team’s perspective to understand real product requirements. PO explains them from the business level while Architects brings up the technical points.
What is the purpose of Agile grooming?
Its purpose is to boil down the requirements to a high-level design and a feasible solution. During grooming, Agile teams break the features into stories and split them further. After that, they perform estimation in story points, and the aim is to get to a reasonable estimate.
