Backlog Grooming

What is backlog grooming?

Backlog grooming 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. You may also hear of backlog grooming as backlog refinement.

When backlog grooming is working at its best, it usually takes the form of a regularly scheduled meeting attended by key team stakeholders. To keep the session focused, it’s generally not a good idea to bring too many people into backlog grooming meetings. But representatives of core teams — product managers, product owners, QA, and so on — should be present. 

As well as backlog refinement, you may also have heard backlog grooming referred to as ‘story time’. But whatever you choose to call it, this process can be a powerful tool for keeping teams focused on the product roadmap’s overall strategic trajectory. 

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What is the goal of backlog refinement?

The central aim of backlog refinement is to review outstanding user stories in the backlog, ensure they are prioritized correctly, and that they are prepared for sprint planning. 

Holding regular backlog grooming sessions like these not only keeps teams unified and on-target, but also ensures the backlog doesn’t get bogged down with irrelevant or outdated stories. Unlike a daily scrum, which focuses on immediate, daily tasks, backlog grooming is a more strategic exercise, concerned with the progress of the product roadmap as a whole.

Just like any large-scale team project, agile development teams can sometimes fall out of sync — especially when objectives and outcomes change frequently. By holding regular backlog refinement  sessions, teams can more easily align their workloads and ensure that the overall project stays on track. 

User stories within the backlog can be reviewed objectively and assessed from a cross-team perspective, often resulting in re-prioritization. The meeting is also a good opportunity for members of different teams to debate specific user stories, confirm responsibilities, or reshuffle urgencies where necessary.

In terms of practical outcomes, backlog grooming or backlog refinement meetings often result in:

• A re-prioritization of user stories in the backlog

• The splitting of large or nebulous user stories into smaller, more actionable ones

• The addition (or removal) of user stories based on new information

• The addressing of any questions from across different teams

• The assurance that user stories are ready to be worked on in upcoming sprints

The advantages of backlog grooming

Because your backlog can quickly become a wish lists of nice-to-have features, it’s sometimes necessary to undergo somewhat of a reality check — and that’s exactly what backlog grooming can do. The clue is in the name: you are refining the features listed in your backlog, so that’s why we call it backlog refinement.

Unlike sprint planning meetings, which can get highly technical and tactical, backlog refinement is a matter of high-level process adjustment. One of its key advantages is that it enables a cross-team objective review of the backlog, holding stakeholders to account while also offering insight into how best to plan upcoming sprints.

This has a knock-on benefit, too: with a smaller, more refined backlog, sprint planning meetings will be faster and more efficient. By holding frequent, but short, backlog refinement sessions, agile development teams can ensure the overall project scope remains tight without impacting sprint planning. 

For optimal results, and to minimize workflow disruption, backlog refinement meetings should last no more than an hour.

Who should attend backlog grooming sessions?

Because backlog refinement falls outside of the formal meeting structure suggested by the agile methodology, these sessions can take different forms from office to office. 

The same goes for the required attendees. Who needs to be in the room will depend on the project, the organization, and, indeed, the strategic goal. 

What’s more, there’s no hard-and-fast rule for who needs to lead backlog grooming sessions. But, whoever they are, they’ll take the role of a facilitator — not a commander! It may be their responsibility to keep the meeting on time and on topic, but their word is not final. Every stakeholder plays a role in backlog refinement  decisions. 

In the case of agile scrum teams, the scrum master will often be the facilitator; in other companies, a project manager may be the best person for the job.

Along with the facilitator, it’s a good idea to include:

• The product manager or owner

• Engineers or developers who own stories within the backlog

• QA team representatives

That being said, there’s no fixed guest list when it comes to who should attend backlog grooming. It often comes down to who is available at any given moment. 

That’s agility in action.

What to expect in a backlog refinement meeting

As with many things, preparation is key for backlog grooming.

All attendees should prepare in advance if you want your meeting to be worthwhile. But, before you can prepare, you need to know what to expect from backlog refinement sessions. 

Of course, the main objective is to ensure that all user stories are geared towards the primary goal of the product roadmap. If not, there’s a good chance these will be pruned or re-prioritized.

So, to prepare, stakeholders should refamiliarize themselves with the overall project strategy, as well as review key metrics. With user stories under scrutiny, any preliminary results or promising measurements will be beneficial during a backlog grooming session — so if you have them, make sure you bring them along! 

This scrutiny also means that stakeholders should be prepared to answer questions about why their stories should be prioritized in the backlog, how they align with the overarching goals, and so on.

Put simply, this is an exercise that creates regular opportunities for team members to review the product roadmap, ensure their user stories are aligned with it, and liaise with teams from across the business. For development teams using the agile methodology, a well-maintained backlog is the foundation of a successful project — and that should make backlog refinement a very exciting prospect indeed.

Benefits of backlog grooming for cross-functional collaboration

Effective cross-functional collaboration requires as few roadblocks as possible. Backlog grooming can help eliminate some of these roadblocks by ensuring only the most important tasks are required. 

Regular backlog grooming benefits cross-functional teams in several ways, including: 

• Unified product vision - Maintaining a unified product vision is crucial for cross-functional teams. Everyone needs to be aligned with the same vision to avoid inconsistencies. Backlog grooming helps cross-functional teams stay unified by eliminating tasks that aren’t essential to the product vision.

• Greater team efficiency - Features that are nice to have may start to clog up the product backlog, leading teams to work on tasks that may detract from the final product’s quality. Backlog grooming removes anything that won’t add value to the product. This means everyone involved in the cross-functional team will only work on important tasks, leading to a highly efficient development process.

• Effective sprint planning - Removing unnecessary tasks from the product backlog will simplify sprint planning. There are fewer tasks to navigate, allowing teams to break up larger tasks and assign things to members with the best skills for the job.

• Keeps everyone on the same page - By removing tasks that add little value to the final product, cross-functional teams will have a much easier time staying aligned with the overall product vision. 

Metrics to measure backlog grooming effectiveness

It’s not always clear if your backlog grooming is doing what you need it to. A little voice will always ask, “What would have happened if we kept that task?” 

There aren’t many metrics specific to testing how effective your backlog grooming is. However, finding the right metrics can help solidify your decisions and provide strong evidence that you have made the right decisions. 

Some of the best metrics for measuring backlog grooming effectiveness include:

• Reduction in time to market - Keeping track of your time to market is a great indicator of how effective your backlog grooming is. Reduced time to market shows that teams are focusing on the right activities that contribute to the final product. 

• Increase in sprint velocity - Shorter sprints that result in the same quality work are another good measure of effective backlog grooming. 

• Improvement in team satisfaction -  Monitoring employee satisfaction is equally as important as focusing on building high-quality products. If your employees are burned out and dissatisfied, you may need to improve your backlog grooming efforts. 

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