
What is a grooming meeting in scrum?
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. Scrum Backlog Refinement meetings can happen on-demand or scheduled basis up to two times a week, 30 minutes each session.
What is backlog grooming in 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. The purpose of backlog grooming is: Filter the backlog to ensure it has relevant items.
What is a scrum backlog refinement meeting?
This Might Surprise You! 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.
What happens during grooming in 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 are grooming sessions 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.
What is grooming session in sprint?
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 the purpose of grooming in Scrum?
This Might Surprise You! 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.
What is Scrum 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 are the 5 scrum ceremonies?
There are five scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, daily standup, sprint review, sprint retrospective and product backlog grooming.
What is difference between grooming meeting and sprint planning?
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 happens in user story grooming?
Definition of backlog 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.
Who should attend backlog grooming?
As such, there's still no consensus on who should attend. Although I'm generally a big believer of the whole team's involvement, that isn't really practical for this meeting. Here's a couple reasons why: Product backlog grooming often happens two to three days before the end of a sprint.
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 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.
Who owns a sprint backlog?
Who Owns the Sprint Backlog? According to the scrum framework, the entire agile team — scrum master, product owner, and development team members — will share ownership of the sprint backlog. This is because all members of the team will bring unique knowledge and insights to the project at the beginning of each sprint.
What is a refinement session?
A refinement session is a key meeting in Scrum where ideas are clarified so that company or team members can find a solution for a problem a customer is experiencing or a hypothesis the team members have that believe will solve a problem.
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.
Is grooming part of sprint planning?
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 is grooming in software development?
Grooming, or refinement, is the process of updating the product backlog based on feedback or changing requirements. For example, a team might remove irrelevant user stories, prioritize user stories, or create new user stories to keep the entire backlog relevant and up-to-date.
Who should attend backlog grooming?
As such, there's still no consensus on who should attend. Although I'm generally a big believer of the whole team's involvement, that isn't really practical for this meeting. Here's a couple reasons why: Product backlog grooming often happens two to three days before the end of a sprint.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Who runs backlog refinement sessions?
In many cases, the product owner or product manager is tasked with facilitating backlog refinement sessions. However, that doesn’t mean they are solely responsible for holding backlog grooming sessions. It’s also not that uncommon for the Scrum Master (in Agile Scrum teams), a project manager, or another team member to lead these sessions.
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.
How long should a backlog session be?
The general consensus around the ideal length for a backlog grooming session is between 45 minutes to 1 hour. Efficiency is key with grooming sessions. You need to keep things moving along and ensure conversations stay on track. Some teams decide to assign time limits to each user story to keep things moving.
Who facilitates a session?
Someone to facilitate the session: It could be a product owner, product manager, scrum master, project manager, or even an agile coach or consultant.
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.

Backlog Grooming/Refinement
Prioritize Product Backlog
- Sooner or later, we have to refine all product backlog items. However, there are some with a higher priority, and hence, it needs prioritization. Such features require early grooming so that the team can pick them up in next sprint. Refining makes sure that adequate information is available to break the tasks down into subtasks. With proper understanding, SM can create a release plan …
Grooming Benefits
- Product Backlog refinement has many benefits that make it invaluable for the Scrum teams. 1. It allows teams to review and rinse the product backlog. 2. Team members can ask queries and resolve their doubts. 3. It backs up the team to create a continuous understanding of new features, enables them to make a reasonable estimation by eliminating unknowns. 4. PO and tea…
Read More
- We wish that the above article would have left you with proper info to understand the idea of Grooming in Agile Scrum. If you are planning to work in an Agile model, then it is compulsory to know these terms. Anyways, here are some articles that we’ve hand-picked for you. Please go through these and upgrade your knowledge. 1. Agile Methodology 2. Agile Interview Questions 3…