first and foremost there are five events in scrap and refinement is not one of them
hi it's daria here welcome to scrum master it one of the common misconceptions about scrum
is related to the backlog refinement so in this video i'd like to debunk some myths and help you
implement good practices that can help your team improve speaking of myths i have recently created
a free scrum quiz that you can take on my website for free to test how well you actually know scrum
test out your knowledge and get in-depth explanations and recommendations from me
at the end by the way everything i talk about in this video is part of scrum master startup guide
that you can get in the store except that i go in much more practical details and give
you actionable steps for every scrum event and other aspects of the scrum master role
i'll put the links to both the quiz and the guide in the description below as always
let's get back to the backlog refinement first and foremost there are five events in scrap
and refinement is not one of them backlog refinement is actually an activity that
the scrum team needs to undertake during the sprint to keep their product backlog up to date
here's what the scrum guide says product backlog refinement is the act of breaking down and further
defining product backlog items into smaller more precise items this is an ongoing activity to add
details such as a description order and size attributes often vary with the domain of work
so what about the backlog refinement meeting then well i worked with many teams who had a weekly
refinement meeting it is a good practice to implement but it's not mandatory not every
team has to have a refinement meeting at a certain point in time during a sprint to properly follows
from it's not the same as having a spring planning daily scrum review or retrospective for example
another way of doing backlog refinement as a daily task that everyone on the team does
review the backlog set aside 10-15 minutes a day to look into what's new and note any questions you
might have about the items for example do it right after the daily scrum or maybe whenever
someone makes a change in the product backlog they let the whole team know kind of like hey i added
some acceptance criteria to that user story check it out and let me know what you think as simple
as that if there is a bigger change happening in the product backlog for example the product owner
needs to bring in something completely new that will become very important next sprint then the
team might want to meet to discuss it in more detail the best way to approach the backlog
refinement in the end is empirically adjust your approach when needed don't follow a set process as
it might not be effective and i talked about it in one of my later videos i'm going to put the link
in the description so how should you change your approach when needed you can do so by putting some
working agreements in place specifically related to the baccalaureate refinement
one important thing to remember is that the goal of the refinement activity is to keep your product
backlog up to date so that the team is ready for the upcoming sprint yes of course you can
do the refinement during this planning event but it would take the precious time from the
key topics you need to discuss such as the spring goal and then you won't have time to talk about it
and in case you need some additional information from a third party for example you can get stuck
and be unable to plan your work if you're waiting until the spring planning to get some of that
refinement and information into your product backlog if your team is having trouble keeping
the product backlog up to date without a dedicated meeting then having a regular backlog refinement
discussion can definitely help just keep those discussions productive focusing on what's really
important in the product backlog the top ordered items for about two to four sprints worth of work
don't dive too deep in to the bottom of the list you can discuss the protocol and potential spring
goal during that time note any questions you need to get answered to the outside team and more
not everyone on the team has to attend this meeting use this time wisely so that it actually
helps your team get better and update their product backlog don't just follow a setup process
without adjusting it to meet your situation that's everything i wanted to cover in today's
video regarding the backlog refinement activity so a question to you how does your team conduct
backlog refinement what tools and practices worked in your case as usual like subscribe
and share your thoughts in the comments below i hope to see you next time cheers and scrum on