If you're involved in project management, you've likely encountered the terms backlog refinement (formerly called backlog grooming) and sprint planning. Perhaps you're new to the Scrum framework, or you work alongside product teams and need a deeper understanding or a quick refresher on these core concepts.
Regardless of your role, having a clear understanding of backlog refinement and sprint planning is immensely beneficial for contributing to or making decisions in the product development process. This article will dive into the similarities and differences between these two vital Scrum activities and how they collectively contribute to a highly effective Scrum workflow.
Specifically, we’ll cover:
- What is backlog refinement or grooming?
- What is sprint planning?
- Backlog refinement vs sprint planning
- How to get started with Scrum
But before we look at how these two terms relate, let’s explore what each term means individually.
What is backlog refinement or grooming?
Backlog refinement, often still referred to as backlog grooming, is the continuous process of reviewing, updating, and tidying up the product backlog. The product backlog is a dynamic, ordered list of all the work the product team might tackle at some point. This includes everything from new features, user stories, and enhancements to bug fixes, technical debt, and research. Some of these items may be high-priority candidates for the next sprint, while others might be long-term aspirations not to be addressed for some time.
The primary goal of backlog refinement is to ensure these backlog items are:
- Clear: Well-understood and free of ambiguity.
- Concise: To the point, without unnecessary detail.
- Ready: Sufficiently detailed for the development team to begin work without needing more information.
- Estimated: Sized appropriately for effort.
- Prioritized: Correctly ordered to align with the product's strategic objectives and deliver maximum value.
This ongoing activity makes the product backlog a transparent, living artifact that accurately reflects the current state of the product.
What is sprint planning?
Sprint planning, unlike the continuous nature of backlog refinement, is a focused, time-boxed event that occurs once before the start of each new sprint. Sprints typically last one to four weeks, so sprint planning's core objective is to decide which specific, high-priority backlog items the team commits to accomplishing in the upcoming sprint.
Each sprint has its sprint backlog. Think of the product backlog as all the work your team could eventually accomplish, and the sprint backlog as the specific list of items the team commits to work on now within the current sprint. The sprint backlog is populated with "ready" user stories from the product backlog, along with any user stories that were not completed during the previous sprint.
Sprint planning meetings are held at the beginning of every sprint. Teams typically allocate a maximum of two hours of planning time per week of the sprint (e.g., 4 hours for a two-week sprint), though experienced and efficient teams may take less time.
Backlog refinement vs. sprint planning.
You now have clear definitions of backlog grooming and sprint planning, and probably understand some of their similarities and differences.
Sprint planning sessions address near-future items, only covering what will occur within the next sprint. Backlog grooming sessions focus on the project to help prioritize tasks.
To help you feel even more confident in your upcoming planning sessions, explore their similarities and differences further.
The similarities.
Backlog refinement and sprint planning are both integral parts of the product development cycle within the Scrum framework. They are core processes designed to organize a team's work efficiently and ensure continuous delivery of value.
- Both sessions aim to involve all relevant parties (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team, and potentially stakeholders) to varying degrees.
- Both activities significantly benefit from a skilled facilitator (often the Scrum Master) to ensure productive discussions.
- A primary goal for both is to ensure all team members are aligned and have a shared understanding of upcoming tasks and priorities.
- These sessions are most likely to yield successful results when the "voice of the customer" is represented and understood, ensuring customer value is always top of mind.
- Ultimately, both backlog refinement and sprint planning are crucial to the Scrum process, directly enabling teams to prioritize work effectively and pave the way for successful future projects and product increments.
The differences.
While complementary, backlog refinement and sprint planning serve distinct purposes:
Get started with Scrum.
Embracing Scrum can truly transform how your team plans, executes, and delivers projects. If you're looking to adopt this powerful Agile framework, consider these initial steps to set your team up for success:
First, educate your team on Scrum’s core principles, roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team), and events (sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, retrospective). A shared understanding is foundational for cohesive collaboration. Next, identify a pilot project or a small, dedicated team to begin your Scrum journey. This allows for learning and adaptation in a contained environment before scaling.
Focus on creating a clear product backlog that articulates prioritized customer value. Then, commit to the disciplined cadence of sprints, ensuring regular feedback loops and continuous improvement. Tools like Adobe Workfront can significantly support this by providing a centralized platform for managing your backlog, visualizing sprints, facilitating daily stand-ups, and fostering real-time collaboration among your Scrum team. By embracing its iterative nature and commitment to transparency, you will empower your team to deliver high-quality outcomes consistently.
How Workfront can help.
Backlog refinement and sprint planning require significant collaboration and effort across multiple team members. Successful project managers are key to integrating these company-wide efforts. You can empower your project managers and accelerate their project organization by ensuring they have the cutting-edge tools to drive optimal outcomes.
Workfront is enterprise work management software that connects work to strategy and fosters better collaboration by integrating people, data, processes, and technology across your organization. You can manage the entire lifecycle of projects from start to finish. By optimizing and centralizing digital projects, cross-functional teams can connect, collaborate, and execute from anywhere, helping them do their best work.
Book a demo or watch the overview video to learn more.
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