Backlog Management

The Sprint Backlog is flexible, as long as changes do not distract from the focus on the Sprint Goal.

Do Development Teams commit — essentially promise — to complete all the items on the Product Backlog each sprint? Can new insights during the Sprint result in changes to the Sprint Backlog? Or is it fixed? This post by Christiaan Verwijs addresses the myth that the Sprint Backlog is fixed during the Sprint. It makes the case that the Sprint Backlog is flexible, as long as changes do not distract from the focus on the Sprint Goal.

A miro board with 8 organization strategies along with variations and explanations.

Would you like to learn some of the different ways of organizing a product backlog and their effectiveness? There are several techniques for building a backlog, for starters, you can use the '' User story map" method or the '''Funnel backlog'' technique but the former is best when building your backlog for the first time while the latter comes in handy restricting the number of product items at the top. So which of these 8 different ways would you prefer as the product manager in a bid to satisfy your customer's needs?

Four examples with the reasoning and considerations that shaped them, how they were refined during the Sprint and what was discovered along the way.

In a quest to help people build a better understanding of the kind of reasoning that informs Sprint Goals, Christiaan Verwijs writes a story of a real product that he worked on aimed to innovatively integrate a set of related HR products into one platform. He explores the goals the Scrum Team came up with in each Sprint detailing the reasons geared to creating them, what they discovered during that sprint, and how the goals refined the Sprint backlog. Let's read to find out more about how Sprint goals shape both the Sprint Backlog and refinement.

Using s a metaphor to illustrate the potential impact of having more than one product owner per product.

Learn why the Scrum guide emphasizes that a product owner should be one person, not a committee. Using a boat and crew metaphor to answer the question '' Can we have more than one product owner',' it concludes that a single accountable person whose decisions are respected by the entire organization brings clarity and speed that significantly increase your chances of success.

The Product Owner ensures that there is a Product Backlog, that it is ordered, and that it is made available to both the Scrum Team and stakeholders.

Scrum is intended as a simple, yet sufficient framework for complex product delivery. Scrum is not a one-size-fits-all solution, a silver bullet or a complete methodology. Instead, Scrum provides the minimal boundaries within which teams can self-organize to solve complex problems with an empirical approach. This simplicity is its greatest strength, but also the source of many misinterpretations and myths.

Enabling a holistic response to learning insights by focusing on a daily rhythm of reviewing what is for Now, Next and Later.

Detailed planning creates comfort and a sense of being in control, but it is ultimately an illusion. Smaller, frequent panning helps us adapt to future changes as it simplifies and improves the way we embrace these changes. Todd Lankford shares a three planning framework - The Now, Then, and later which helps make the planning easier to adopt by following a hierarchy of needs for the backlog refinement. Carrying out the work in daily batches reduce the number of future refinements as well as give rise to new ideas ensuring targets are met.

Learn the characteristics of a well-formed story, when/how to slice them, and explore nine common patterns for effective story slicing.

Kim Poremski explores some of the common challenges that Scrum teams experience and how focusing on INVEST criteria and vertical story slicing can help. Through the session, she highlights the characteristics of a well-formed story, explores nine common patterns for effective story slicing, and offers clues for when/how to slice stories.

How to do effective Sprint Planning as a Product Owner?

Introducing a Sprint Goal template that allows you to formulate powerful sprint goals. It states the actual goal with the method and the metrics used.

Setting a good Sprint Goal is challenging and important. How do you nail Sprint Goals?

Sizing the Sprint Goal so that the team can focus and have the flexibility to create a Done Increment by the end of a Sprint.

Doing Sprint Planning in 5 easy steps.

If you can’t work with Sprint Goals, fix your Product Management issues first.

Crafting a clear and overarching Sprint Goal during Sprint Planning.