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The Backlog Refinement is the update of the Product Backlog based upon what has been completed and what has been learned in a recently completed Sprint.

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Refinement Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Refinement

The Backlog Refinement is the update of the Product Backlog based upon what has been completed and what has been learned in a recently completed Sprint.

When to Use

The Backlog Refinement is normally done immediately following the Sprint Demo.

Instructions

  • The Product Backlog refinement is done by the Product Owner.
  • The Product Owner considers the results of the Sprint Demo:
    • The performance of the completed Stories.
    • Insight concerning uncompleted Stories.
    • Ideas for new Stories or modifications to the remaining Stories that will improve the project’s ability to deliver on the vision or goal of the project.
  • During the course of the Sprint, business or industry conditions may have changed that result in the need to add, delete, or modify Stories.
  • The Product Owner then begins to reprioritize the remaining Product Backlog in preparation for starting another Sprint.

Hints and Tips

  • This is the chance for a “do-over” on the Product Backlog.  If the Product Owner now realizes that some of the stories missed the mark, they should change them. There is no reason to keep inadequate or unnecessary Stories just because they were in the original Product Backlog.
  • This normally doesn’t take long, especially if there were no surprises in the Sprint Demo.
  • Continuing with the museum website upgrade example:
    • A new Story was created to get the Donor button to work with the Merchant Services interface.
    • Another new Story was added based upon comments from the Sprint Demo and that was to include an interactive Calendar function.
    • The Stories were then reprioritized:

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  • 00:04 Hi this is Ray Sheen.
  • 00:06 Well once the sprint is over, we need to refine or update the project.
  • 00:10 So let's look at another critical activity in closing an Agile Scrum sprint project.
  • 00:16 And that is the product backlog refinement.
  • 00:19 Recall that the product backlog is the prioritized list of the stories that
  • 00:24 represent the project deliverables and results.
  • 00:27 Some of those have been demonstrated in the sprint demo.
  • 00:30 So we want to look at the remaining open stories in the backlog and
  • 00:34 refine that list.
  • 00:35 We will use the results of the sprint demo as a starting point for the refinement.
  • 00:39 Based upon all the stories that were completed and demonstrated.
  • 00:43 The product owner will have a better understanding of what is realistic and
  • 00:47 feasible.
  • 00:48 Also, there is now a better insight about the uncompleted stories.
  • 00:52 Were they too difficult?
  • 00:54 Is there some technical or organizational obstacles?
  • 00:56 Or did the team just run out of time?
  • 00:59 I encourage the product owner at this point to revisit the project vision
  • 01:03 or goal.
  • 01:03 With the completion of the stories from the sprint, they should reconsider
  • 01:07 whether they have the right stories in the remaining project backlog.
  • 01:11 And whether the demo criteria should be revised on any of those stories.
  • 01:15 Of course, it's quite possible that during the sprint,
  • 01:18 there were some changes to industry or business conditions.
  • 01:22 This is time to address, modify or delete stories for that purpose.
  • 01:26 I caution the product owner not to become wedded to the original stories.
  • 01:31 This is like a free do over.
  • 01:33 If you know that some uncompleted stories really do need to change, change them now.
  • 01:38 As the new stories or modified stories are added to the list.
  • 01:41 The product owner needs to start thinking about changing the priorities before going
  • 01:46 to the next sprint.
  • 01:47 It should be obvious that since we are dealing with the product backlog,
  • 01:52 that the product owner is the person doing the refinement.
  • 01:55 They may still talk to stakeholders and the scrum team members about
  • 01:59 stories are demo criteria, but the product owner decides what is to be changed.
  • 02:04 Let's look at the roles, responsibilities and deliverables for
  • 02:07 the refinement activity.
  • 02:10 The product owner has the primary responsibility and the only deliverable.
  • 02:14 They refine the product backlog and create an updated and reprioritize backlog.
  • 02:20 Everyone else helps out and contributes their expertise and
  • 02:23 insight as requested by the product owner.
  • 02:26 So let's look one more time at our museum website upgrade project.
  • 02:30 Based upon the sprint demo results,
  • 02:32 the product owner needed to create a new story card.
  • 02:35 That gets the donor button to work with a merchant services account.
  • 02:40 Also during the sprint demo,
  • 02:41 a suggestion was made to add an interactive calendar function.
  • 02:45 This was consistent with the overall goal, so
  • 02:47 the product owner created a story card for that.
  • 02:51 Then it was time to reprioritize, and here were the results.
  • 02:55 The donor button was at the top of the list.
  • 02:58 The interactive calendar was prioritized to be right after the interactive map and
  • 03:03 before the analytics.
  • 03:04 Everything else stayed in the same relative order.
  • 03:07 Ooh and for this project, the refinement activity took about 15 minutes.
  • 03:11 On a large complex project, it will take a little longer.
  • 03:16 The product backlog refinement is a great opportunity for
  • 03:19 the product owner to fine tune the project requirements before the next sprint.
  • 03:23 It's a built in mid-course correction.

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