PD

Backlog Refinement and Planning

Module
Portfolio
Skill
[Time/Project Management Teamwork]
Minutes
60

Learning Objectives

  • Refine tickets’ acceptance criteria

Introduction

In backlog refinement we:

  1. Review the tickets on the board
  2. Identify which tickets should be picked up next
  3. Make sure these tickets are the next priority.

We will decide which tickets we aim to deliver during the next sprint. We can also discuss which ones to demo.

Exercises

Refine your tickets (25 minutes)

Goal: Have enough tickets refined for 1.5 weeks

During this review, the team will work together:

  1. Discuss the tickets that will be reviewed and why. Make sure you all agree they are the next priority.

  2. Open the highest priority ticket and read it quietly to remind yourself what this ticket is about.

  3. Discuss the acceptance criteria. Have we forgotten anything? Have we covered the unhappy scenarios? Do we know how we will test (or build our tests - TDD? ;) )

  4. Everyone must agree that each team member is happy with the ticket and can pick it up next and work on it. The ticket is now considered as “Ready for Development”.

Plan your delivery (20 minutes)

Goal: Prioritise which tickets we can deliver in the next 1 week

We now might have more tickets Ready for Development than we can actually deliver. So we need to decide which tickets will we agree on delivering in the next week and work as a team to achieve this.

  1. Discuss if anyone will not be available in the coming week or have a reduced availability

  2. Discuss the size/difficulty of the tickets

  3. Considering the above, decide which tickets you believe you can deliver in the coming sprint.

  4. Identify which ticket you will demo.