至尊花和尙未全文阅读:Grooming the Product Backlog

The product backlog is a beautifullysimple artifact – a prioritized list of the outstanding work necessaryto bring the product to life. To work with the product backlogeffectively, it needs regular attention and care; it needs to becarefully managed, or groomed. Business analysts can play an importantrole to ensure that this is done well.

The Well-groomed Product Backlog

A well-groomed product backlog hasfour qualities in Scrum: It is detailed appropriately, estimated,emergent, and prioritized, making it DEEP.

Detailed Appropriately

The product backlog items aredetailed appropriately. Higher-priority items are described in moredetail than lower-priority ones; they are smaller are more precise. “Thelower the priority, the less detail, until you can barely make out thebacklog item,” write Schwaber and Beedle in their book Agile Software Development with Scrum.Following this guideline keeps the backlog concise and ensures that theitems likely to be implemented in the next sprint are ready andworkable. As a consequence, requirements are discovered, decomposed, andrefined throughout the entire project. Product discovery is hence anongoing process in Scrum. There is no longer a product definition phasewhere the product functionality is determined once and for all.

Estimated

The product backlog items areestimated or sized. The estimates are coarse-grained and often expressedin story points or ideal days. Knowing the size of the items is a costindicator. It helps prioritize the product backlog and facilitatesplanning the release. Note that detailed task-level estimates arecreated in the relevant sprint planning meeting; tasks and theirestimates are captured in the sprint backlog.

Emergent

The product backlog has a veryorganic quality; it evolves, and its contents change frequently. Newitems are discovered and added to the backlog based on customer and userfeedback. Existing items are modified, reprioritized, refined, orremoved on an ongoing basis. The product backlog is hence a dynamicartifact that changes throughout the entire project. It is by no meansfixed.

Prioritized

All items in the product backlog areprioritized. Prioritization is imperative as it directs the team’s workby focusing the team on the most important items. It also freezes thebacklog contents progressively – items in the product backlog aredetailed according to their priority. The most important andhighest-priority items are implemented first. They are found at the topof the product backlog. Once an item is done, it is removed from theproduct backlog.

Scrum does not mandate how the product backlog is prioritized. But I have found the following prioritization factors useful:

Value: I consider an itemvaluable if it is necessary for bringing the product to life. If that’snot the case, the item is irrelevant; it is excluded from the currentrelease or product version. The Scrum team either de-prioritizes theitem and places it right at the bottom of the product backlog or better,discards it altogether. The latter keeps the product backlog conciseand the Scrum team focused. If the item is important for a futureversion, it will reemerge.

Knowledge, uncertainty, and risk:Because risk and uncertainty influence product success, uncertain andrisky items should be high-priority. This accelerates the generation ofnew knowledge, drives out uncertainty, and reduces risk. If the Scrumteam, for instance, is unsure about some aspects of the user interfacedesign, the relevant design options should be explored and tested bygathering feedback from customers and users early on.

Releasability: Releasing early andfrequently is a great way to let the software evolve into a product thatcustomers love. It’s also an effective way to mitigate risks. If theScrum team is uncertain about if and how a feature should beimplemented, early releases can help answer this question.

Dependencies: Weather we likeit or not, dependencies in the product backlog are a fact. Functionalrequirements, for instance, often depend on other functional and evennonfunctional requirements. And several teams working together cancreate further dependencies in the backlog. Dependencies that cannot beremoved restrict the freedom to prioritize the product backlog andinfluence the effort estimates; the item on which others depend has tobe implemented first.

The Grooming Steps

To ensure that the product backlog isDEEP, we have to regularly groom it. Grooming the product backlog is anongoing process that comprises the four steps listed below. Note thatthese are not necessarily carried out in the order stated.

New items are discovered anddescribed, and existing ones are changed or removed as appropriate. Agreat technique to capture functional requirements on the productbacklog is user stories. User stories describe functionality form auser’s perspective, are easy to use and can be smoothly refinedincrementally.

The product backlog is prioritized.The most important items are now found at the top. The lower-priorityitems are found at the bottom. It’s clear which items will participatein the next release or product version and in which order the items willbe implemented.

The high-priority items are preparedfor the upcoming sprint planning meeting; they are decomposed andrefined until they are ready: They are clear – the entire Scrum team hasa common understanding of the items. They are feasible – small enoughto fit into the next sprint so they can be transformed into a productincrement according to the definition of done. And they are testable –they can be validated so that the product owner can assess if an itemwas successfully implemented or not at the end of the sprint.

The team sizes product backlog items.Adding new items to the product backlog, changing existing ones, andcorrecting estimates make sizing necessary. Common measures of size arestory points and ideal days. A great technique to facilitate teamestimations is planning poker. Note that team members don’t estimate thework individually. Instead, they agree on the likely team effort.

Grooming is Teamwork

Although the product owner isresponsible for making sure that the product backlog is in good shape,grooming is teamwork. Items are best discovered and described,prioritized, decomposed, and refined by the entire Scrum team – Scrumallocates up to 10% of the team’s availability for grooming activities.Stakeholders are also involved as appropriate. Product definition ishence a team effort in Scrum. There is no longer one person who issolely charged with identifying and detailing requirements.

Grooming the product backlogcollaboratively creates a dialogue within the Scrum team and between theteam and the stakeholders. It removes the divide between “the business”and “the techies.” It eliminates wasteful handoffs, and avoidsmiscommunication and misalignment. Requirements are no longer handed offto the team; the team members coauthor them. This increases the clarityof the requirements, leverages the Scrum team’s collective knowledgeand creativity, and creates buy-in and joint ownership.

Some teams like to do a bit ofgrooming after their Daily Scrum. Others prefer weekly grooming sessionsor a longer grooming workshop toward the end of the sprint. Groomingactivities also take place in the sprint review meeting when the Scrumteam and the stakeholders discuss the way forward; new backlog items areidentified and old ones are removed.

Grooming and the Business Analyst

If grooming is teamwork, what’s thenleft to do for the business analyst? The answer depends on the rolebusiness analysts play in Scrum. As an analyst acting as the productowner, you are not only in charge of the grooming process but you arealso in a great position to guide and teach the team and thestakeholders. As a business analyst working on the team you engage inthe grooming activities together with the product owner and the otherteam members who will greatly benefit from your skills and yourexperience.

Be careful though to involve yourfellow Scrum team members properly. Help and guide your colleagues butdo not to take over – even if you are best qualified to capture andrefine requirements. This would not only turn you into a bottleneck butalso waste the benefits of a team-based grooming approach discussedabove.

Summary

Grooming the product is an ongoingprocess to ensure that the product backlog is DEEP. Product owner,ScrumMaster, team should groom the backlog collaboratively involving thestakeholders as appropriate. As a business analyst, your skills andyour experience will be important to groom the backlog well.

Find out more about working with theproduct backlog projects in my new book Agile Product Management withScrum: Creating Products that Customers Love. The book is the productowner’s guide to creating successful products with Scrum; it discussesthe product owner role together with essential product owner practisesincreasing envisioning the product, grooming the product backlog, andplanning the release.