The backlog refinement guide: Best practices + agenda template

Development frameworks focused on continual delivery, such as Scrum or Agile, rely on team leads to ensure their team can quickly adjust to new tasks between cycles. Establishing an iterative backlog refinement plan is essential, allowing developers to prepare for upcoming sprints. If your team doesn't manage its backlog effectively, it can delay the development of high-value features and cause further inefficiencies.

Editing the backlog keeps developers focused on high-priority tasks and enables leaders to prioritize features. The process can also help prevent scope creep and time management issues. We'll examine the backlog refinement procedure, discuss the benefits to your process, and review backlog refinement meeting best practices.

Table of contents: 

• What is backlog refinement?
  
• Benefits of backlog refinement
• Backlog refinement vs. backlog grooming
• The backlog refinement meeting
• Example backlog refinement meeting agenda
• 9 backlog refinement best practices
• FAQ

Backlog refinement is the process of managing and prioritizing items in your product backlog. Product owners, managers, and teams review items and tasks in the product backlog together in what is called a backlog refinement meeting. Agile and Scrum teams use this process to facilitate fast-paced dev cycles. By organizing tasks in advance, teams can hit the ground running when their next sprint begins.

Product backlog refinement ensures all items are relevant, prioritized, and ready for delivery. It involves activities like:

• Story points should reflect the effort required to deliver an item in comparison to others in your backlog

• Prioritizing tickets based on current goals

• Asking stakeholders for information about tickets

• Clarifying ticket requirements with in-depth user stories

• Combining related or duplicated tickets

• Determining the scope needed to tackle each task

• Breaking down complex tasks into manageable bits

• Accessing any obstacles that may impede task completion

Backlog refinement keeps tasks detailed and well-prioritized. It also gives teams a chance to understand each project and its objective. Importantly, backlogs are not static documents; they should be ever-changing to reflect new priorities, prioritize business value, and reduce the complexity of each task. With an accurate backlog, your teams get a clear picture of scope and understand why each task is valuable.  

Backlog refinement also makes sprint planning easier. Maintaining your backlog helps Scrum and Agile teams prioritize high-value tasks in each sprint. This approach means that teams are ready to jump in at the beginning of a sprint with a clear list of high-priority stories prepared for scheduling. Other benefits of backlog refinement include:

• Improved alignment: Ensures all development work aligns with overall business goals and objectives

• Greater clarification: Improves sprint planning efficiency by defining tasks early in the process

• More focused tasks: Refines the product backlog to include currently relevant tasks

• Better collaboration: Encourages engagement when writing user stories and determining ownership

• A streamlined workflow: Keeps tickets from piling up in the backlog, streamlining the process

• Clear priority: Highlights tickets with the greatest business value to assist team planning

• Enhanced accountability: Provides better visibility into team members and their given responsibilities

Backlog refinement and backlog grooming are two terms used interchangeably in Agile and Scrum development methodologies. In most contexts, the two terms typically mean the same thing: reviewing and prioritizing items in a development backlog. However, in select situations, the word choices can convey minor differences in approach.

The choice of refinement or grooming can differentiate between ongoing processes and periodic reviews. The term “refinement backlog” may describe a more iterative method over time. Meanwhile, backlog grooming can sometimes be seen as an occasional tidying up or “grooming” of the backlog—not an ongoing process.

If there’s a chance your team may need additional clarification, align on your usage of the terms and highlight the approach you're taking with your backlog.

The backlog refinement meeting process lets your team tackle its development backlog methodically. During these meetings, teams review their current backlog, updating and prioritizing tasks. The purpose of the meeting is to ensure items are ready to be handled in your next sprint or iteration.

You should hold regular backlog refinement meetings, though your team can vary the frequency of meetings based on needs and other project requirements. To get started, we recommend holding meetings at least once per sprint; teams with shorter sprints may favor weekly meetings.

Backlog refinement is a pivotal piece of Agile and Scrum processes, but it's not an official ceremony. You can better maintain your backlog by integrating refinement meetings into your approach. Fit refinement into your Agile or Scrum cycles by:

• Holding backlog refinement meetings before your sprint planning meetings to ensure proper priority

• During sprints, hold ongoing refinement meetings for continuous review and to handle new priorities

• Once a sprint has been completed, hold a refinement meeting to keep your backlog prepared

To ensure an effective backlog refinement meeting process, have your team prepare an agenda outlining what you plan to discuss. Common topics include:

• Reviewing high-priority items

• Breaking down large items

• Defining acceptable criteria

• Identifying risks and dependencies

• Calculating scope and effort

Use this free meeting agenda template to help with your backlog refinement meeting. Customize the template to better meet your team's personalized needs and requirements.

Backlog refinement agenda for 11/13/23

• Time: 1 p.m. PST

• Location: Remote

• Scrum Master: Mark Underhill

• Stakeholders: None

• Product owner: Jess Branford

1. Strategy review: Asses business objectives and how this project helps us reach them. 

2. Team updates and market changes: Address changes to user needs or expected features. Share internal updates on past fixes or new functions in the pipeline. 

3. Discuss user stories: Review the user story for each item. Describe how you’ll meet acceptance criteria for each story. Estimate how much work and time will go into each one. 

4. Unfinished tasks: Go over tasks left incomplete during the last sprint. Explain why they weren’t completed and decide if they will carry into the next sprint. 

5. Upcoming tasks: Add tasks to the upcoming sprint and prioritize them by importance. 

6. Address risks: Discuss any risks, scoping issues, or security threats related to upcoming tasks. Suggest safeguards and plans for any issues. 

7. Backlog cleaning: Remove outdated or unnecessary tasks from the backlog. Split large tasks into smaller ones you can finish in a sprint. 

8. Market changes: Discuss competitor strategy and other brands to keep an eye on. Note fluctuations in the market and user expectations. 

9. Q&A: Allow a few minutes for team members to ask questions. 

Try our backlog refinement meeting agenda template to loop your teams in before a meeting.

Effective backlog meetings are short, led by product owners or managers, and limited to items that will come up in the next sprint. Because sprints are only two to three weeks, you won’t have much time to refine your backlog before sprint planning. Make the most of each backlog refinement meeting by following these best practices. 

In your agenda, let your team know what they’re walking into. With more preparation, devs can come in with questions and priorities in mind. You can also ask everyone to review the backlog before your meeting. 

Scrum Masters and other meeting leaders may want to give attendees a heads up before:

• Writing new user stories and prioritizing them to meet emerging needs 

• Removing outdated user stories 

• Sizing and resizing items based on dev resources

• Improving project clarity by fleshing out implementation details

Not all product backlogs are created equal, but you can optimize yours with the right priorities and organization. Roman Pichler, a product management expert, recommends DEEP backlogs, which are: 

• Detailed: Every backlog item needs enough detail to build a user story. At a glance, devs need enough context to complete their tasks. 
• Emergent: Product backlogs improve and evolve as needs change. Let go of the impulse to keep your backlog static. 
• Estimated: Backlog items should include an estimate of the effort needed to finish a task. Generally, Agile teams measure effort in the time a task takes to complete.
• Prioritized: Organized backlogs list tasks in order of priority. Put tasks heavily related to your upcoming sprint at the top of the list.

A definition of ready outlines what a user story needs to include before you accept it for implementation in a sprint. A good definition bases all user stories around a consistent baseline. Your definition of done describes what a user story needs to include in terms of: 

• The business value or potential revenue from the user story

• An estimate of the time and resources needed to finish it

• The objectives it helps users meet or the pain points it resolves

Always try to keep your backlog meetings short and streamlined. To do that, only block out one hour for your meeting. If you can't fit every agenda item into the discussion, you can push some items to the sprint planning meeting. 

Try agenda timeboxing if you need help keeping your refinement meetings to a specific time. Break your meeting agenda into smaller sections, allocating specific periods for tasks on your agenda.

Generally, product owners, Scrum Masters, and their teams attend backlog refinement meetings. In some cases, stakeholders, UI/UX designers, and QA testers may also offer valuable input. To streamline your meetings, consider limiting attendance to teams and stakeholders working on backlog items in the next sprint.

When deciding who should attend the backlog refinement meeting, consider these additional tips:

• Ensure attendees are all relevant to backlog items.

• Add attendees who have the authority to make needed decisions.

• Consider the availability of those you need to invite to your meeting.

Dependencies are relationships between tasks or elements of a program that must be completed in a sequential order.  So, make sure your backlog organization reflects how tasks build on each other and prioritize them accordingly. That way, your team flows from task to task without running into roadblocks. 

To help manage dependencies, consider:

• Identifying dependencies early by consulting with team members

• Using Kanban boards or other visual tools to track dependencies

• Prioritizing any dependent tasks

• Engaging in regular review and communication with your team

Digital tools are instrumental in fostering better communication among team members throughout the backlog refinement process, especially during meetings. Whether it's a digital whiteboard or project management software, these tools are vital in visualizing progress and concepts, as well as keeping everyone informed and involved throughout the refinement process.

Maintaining a document of decisions made during your team's backlog refinement meetings can help summarize actions and provide actionable insights. Documenting decisions and assigned individuals can also help keep team members accountable. If you need help keeping meeting notes, consider an AI-based solution to record, transcribe, and summarize critical items.

The feedback process never ends—it is constantly evolving. Connect with your team and collect feedback to improve your backlog refinement meetings. Gaining a perspective on your gatherings can help make meetings more effective and ensure a positive developer experience. You can collect feedback in a few ways, including:

• Asking for input in 1:1 meetings with individual team members

• Opening the floor for feedback at the end of backlog refinement meetings

• Sending out anonymous digital surveys to take the pressure off feedback

• Encouraging an ongoing environment of critical feedback

Still have questions about Scrum backlogs and the purpose of backlog refinement? We’ve answered a few frequently asked questions about the refinement process below. 

During a backlog refinement session or meeting, developers, team leads, and stakeholders work to address and prioritize items in a product's backlog. A refinement session provides guidance, allowing involved parties to review backlog items, break down complex tasks, define criteria and scope, and prioritize assignments.

The key benefit of backlog refinement is ensuring your team's product backlog is well-organized and prioritized. By preparing your backlog for a sprint, your team will have better clarity and understanding surrounding objectives. Additionally, improved prioritization ensures that the highest-priority items are tackled first, according to business needs.

There is no set number of backlog refinements during sprints. To keep your team updated, we recommend holding a backlog refinement once a week for a standard two-week sprint. As sprints increase in duration, you can hold refinement meetings less often, such as every two weeks.

The entire backlog refinement process is ongoing and doesn't necessarily have an end; it's focused on continuously keeping your backlog manageable and prioritized. Each backlog refinement session will generally last one to two hours, depending on the backlog your team needs to tackle.

When you refine your backlog really depends on your team and your workflow. Many teams review the backlog after their last sprint’s review and before their next sprint planning meeting. Some teams work backlog refinement into their sprint retrospective. That said, many teams hold off until they've compiled software KPIs from the last dev cycle.

To effectively prioritize your team's backlog items, you'll want to clearly understand your business values and overall goals—access how each item contributes to your goals or delivers customer value. 

Other shareholders who can share their input should be involved to help establish proper prioritization. In some cases, backlog items may have dependencies, making others more accessible and helping to establish order.

The backlog refinement process poses challenges to development teams. However, discussions during refinement meetings, better time management, and communication can overcome many refinement channels. Some of the most common backlog refinement challenges include:

• Improper time management and prioritization that you can solve by using timeboxing techniques

• A lack of clarity or focus between team members you can solve by enabling open communication

• Difficulty prioritizing items, which you can address by bringing in stakeholders for feedback

• Overly detailed discussions that you can better manage by implementing a meeting facilitator

Backlog refinement is an invaluable tool for managers to keep their teams focused and improve developer productivity. Whether you’re trying to find high-value tasks or improve alignment, a backlog meeting can help. With enough practice, you can strike the perfect balance of planning and daily standups to keep teams productive throughout development.

Once you’ve set your goals, you need a tool to ensure you can meet them. Flow’s Sprint Movement Report provides a visual analysis of your team’s completion and scope-added percentages over the course of a sprint. Schedule a demo today and see how Flow can help improve your sprints cycle over cycle.