Scrum Teams work best when they collaborate with their product owners to continually refine their backlogs. This is, of course, easier to do when teams are small and collocated. In this webinar, Luke Hohmann, from Conteneo, will present a collection of frameworks that support product owners and Scrum Teams working together to refine backlogs in large and/or distributed teams.

1. Backlog Refinement at Scale
27-July-2017
@lukehohmann

2. About @lukehohmann

3. 2-4 WEEK
SPRINT
DAILY SCRUM
MEETING
(EVERY 24 HOURS)
POTENTIALLY SHIPABLE
PRODUCT INCREMENT
SPRINT BACKLOGPRODUCT BACKLOG
3
Scrum is Straightforward!

4. 2-4 WEEK
SPRINT
DAILY SCRUM
MEETING
(EVERY 24 HOURS)
POTENTIALLY SHIPABLE
PRODUCT INCREMENT
SPRINT BACKLOGPRODUCT BACKLOG
4
Scaling Scrum Challenges
Tech
Debt
Release
Planning
Roadmap
Retros
Liftoffs
Refining
Value
Based
Backlogs
Priorities
Depend-
encies
Done,
Done
CI/CD

5. What is a “Ready” Product Backlog Item (PBI)?
• The team understands how to deliver the PBI.
• The PBI is testable.
• The PBI has no external blocking dependencies.
• The PBI fits within a Sprint.
• All of the above.
5
POLL
QUESTION

6. Agenda
1 What is “Backlog Refinement?”
2 Handling PBIs that aren’t understood
3 Handling PBIs that are too large
4 Handling PBIs with dependencies
6

7. Backlog Refinement
7

8. Backlog Refinement is the art
and science of creating “Ready”
Product Backlog Items.

9. Prioritization is Not the Same as Ready!
9
New Feature
User story
nnn
Bug Fix
Epic
nnn
User Story
User Story
nnn
Do These
Defer These
The Mushy Middle
Should the PBI
move up or down?
Is the PBI Ready
for the team?
Dependencies...
Too Big ...
PBIs at the
very top
should
always be
ready.

10. We Cycle Prioritization and Refinement
10
A
B
C
D
FE
New Feature
User story
nnn
Bug Fix
Epic
nnn
User Story
User Story
nnn
New Feature
User story
D
A
E
B
nnn
Bug Fix
nnn
User Story
User Story
nnn
C
F

11. One Backlog to Rule Guide Them All!
11
Team 2
New Feature
User story
nnn
Bug Fix
Enhancement
nnn
User Story
User Story
nnn
PO Team 3
Team 4
Team 1
Team 5
PO
PO
Team 6
Distributed teams
may have local
POs but there is
one backlog.

12. Smart POs Get Help!
12
New Feature
User story
nnn
Bug Fix
Enhancement
nnn
User Story
User Story
nnn
PO
Team 4
Team 5
Team 6
Hey PO!
We have lots of good
ideas and we’re eager to
help create Ready PBIs.
If you engage us…

13. Merge – Diverge – Merge Pattern
13
PO
Teams, I need
you to work on
these epics…
Teams refine PBIs using
in-person and online
techniques we’ll share.
PO
Hey,
thanks…
Teams store results
in backlog for the
PO to prioritize.

14. Lots of Ways to Express PBIs
14
As a <user/role/persona>
I want to <goal>
so that <benefit/reason>
Extend “Buy a Feature”
to include an XS shirt
size.
In other words, just
say what you want!

15. How to Create Ready, Ready PBIs
15

16. Which techniques for creating Ready stories
have you used? Select all that apply.
• Setting context
• Write a problem statement
• Specification by Example
• Story Rounding
• Spike It
• Peanut Butter Splits
• Story Storming
• User Story Maps
• Peek Ahead
16
POLL
QUESTION

17. Identify How a PBI Isn’t Ready
17
PBI Not
Ready
Not
Understood?
Too Big?
Set Context
Peanut Butter Splits
Story Rounding
Story Storming
Dependencies
Spike It
Design Ahead
User Story Mapping
Planning Walls
Specification by Example

18. Helping Make PBIs More Understandable
18

19. Setting Context
As a participant in a Conteneo
forum I can remove an item by
dragging it off of the game
board.
19
Context: In version 1.0 of the
Conteneo platform you could
delete an item by dragging it off
the game board. In version 2.0
you can't, and several of our
"power user" facilitators have
complained about this.
Therefore, we have this story:
As a participant in a Conteneo
forum I can remove an item by
dragging it off of the game
board.
Use this technique when you’re
growing rapidly to help developers
with different histories.

20. Story Rounds (from Peter Green)
Post your PBI on the wall.
Hand out a bunch of cards to
your team.
Have each person silently write one
clause of a user story and then hand
the card to the left. Put completed cards in the center of the table.
Keep going until the team has stopped (or there is too much laughter ;-).
20
Peter Green, CST
Try it online:
bit.ly/story-round

21. Specification by Example (from Gojko Adzic)
Post your PBI on the wall.
Capture all the variables for your requirement. On a white board (or
wiki page) develop examples of usage with values for each variable.
Show expected results of calculations and validations.
To scale, the PO may bring ~3 examples for each PBI, and the teams
flush out questions, make visible assumptions, and permit splitting
while retaining value.
Keep going until you have 10-30 examples per PBI.
21
Gojko Adzic, author

22. Spike It
22
Sprintn-2 Sprintn-1 Sprintn Sprintn+1
Teams do small amounts of
work in these Sprints to
understand a Story
So that they can implement it
in a future Sprint.

23. Helping Make PBIs Smaller
23

24. Peanut Butter Splits
We can split stories a lot of ways.
The goal is to always have a valid story.
24
Split by market
segment: Which
customers need
which business
rules?
Split by inputs /
outputs: Can we
start with one
format and add
more?
Split by automation:
Can your user do
things that you can
automate later?
Split by workflow: Can
you convert this into a
story map and implement
in discrete steps?

25. Story Storming
Post your Epic on the wall.
Phase 1: Invite your team to write as many stories as possible to help
decompose the Epic.
Duplicates are OK – go for volume.
Phase 2: Group them based on similarities and see if a workflow
emerges.
25

26. User Story Maps Capture Workflows
Goals / Tasks
Stories
Increasingly Better
Releases

27. 27
Goals
Tasks
How we do it now
How we can
make it
better…

28. 1 User Story
2 User Story
Bug Fix
Enhancement
4 User Story
5 User Story
6 User Story
7 User Story
8 User Story
…
Cut
Line
Quality? Sure
Value? Could be zero…
Quality? Sure
Value? I can do …

29. Planning Walls
29
Product Owners
manage the Y-Axis.
Dev team(s) manage
the X-Axis.
Together, they build
clarity and make the
stories smaller.
http://bit.ly/agile-team-planning-wall

30. Dependencies
30

31. Design Ahead
31
Sprintn-2 Sprintn-1 Sprintn Sprintn+1
Certain teams do advance
work before the rest of the
teams.
We find this really helpful in
user interface design.

32. Summary and Discussions
32

33. Summary
Backlog refinement is
essential for agility
Try to understand the
refinement problem you’re facing
Use frameworks to address the challenges at scale
Include your teams – they will help if you let them!
33

34. Which techniques for creating Ready stories
do you want to try? Select all that apply.
• Setting context
• Write a problem statement
• Specification by Example
• Story Rounding
• Spike It
• Peanut Butter Splits
• Story Storming
• User Story Maps
• Peek Ahead
34
POLL
QUESTION

35. Thank you for attending.
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