Product Refinement Session-Types
This post is part of 101 ideas for agile teams.
Context
Your team refines the Product Backlog during Product Backlog Refinement meetings. The whole team together with the Product Owner attends this meeting. The team discusses the Product Backlog, breaks down User Stories, and estimates User Stories. The Product Owner then takes open questions to the stakeholders for answering.
These meetings take quite some time, mostly the team is bored by the details, and only a couple of attendees are engaged in discussions.
Action
Build up a catalog of types of sessions for Product Refinement. The catalog lists all possible types of sessions with criteria when to use which type.
Here is an example catalog:
Conversations — understanding needs of stakeholders
One or more team members talk to a single stakeholder to clarify their needs.
Workshops — break down Product Backlog Items, write Acceptance Criteria, find examples
Some team members work together to refine parts of the Product Backlog. The result is then presented to the whole team in a meeting.
1-on-1 — giving feedback to the Product Owner
The Product Owner sits together with a single team member to clarify technical feasibility.
Meeting — whole team needed
The whole team sits together.
For every Product Backlog item, the team decides what session type is applied next regarding whether the item primarily needs clarification, breaking down, or something else. Then the sessions are scheduled. Repeat until the item is refined enough to be implemented.
What you gain
You have a tool belt full of different types of sessions to aid with the different aspects of Product Backlog Refinement. When chosen wisely, the sessions are far more effective and efficient than using meetings all the time.
The team members can directly interact with the stakeholders through conversations and attend only the sessions valuable to them and the team.
How to strengthen
Support the team by facilitating the different sessions. Go to a conversation with the team members, moderate the workshop and so on.
Risks
Different session types with different duration are way harder to schedule into a busy calendar than a single meeting that takes place once a Sprint. → Make sure that the team — especially the Product Owner — has enough slack time to be flexible enough to schedule the refinement sessions in a timely manner.
Please help me improve this idea by providing feedback.
More ideas at 101 ideas for agile teams
Many thanks to bbv Software Services for making this blog post possible.
