Creating an Effective Checklist for Grooming Backlog
Grooming user stories and breaking down features can pose significant challenges. The pressure to fill the sprint backlog for an agile feature team in a large enterprise is substantial, especially when compounded by tight project deadlines. Often, external stakeholders do not fully grasp the effort required to prepare a single user story and establish clear acceptance criteria. To ease the burden of grooming, consider establishing a unified “definition of ready” with your scrum team in order to establish a meaningful checklist for grooming backlog.
What is a 'Definition of Ready'?
While the concept of the “definition of done” is widely understood in development circles, signifying the specific criteria that a user story must meet to be considered complete within a single sprint, a similar approach can be beneficial for user story grooming.
The exact parameters of the definition of ready will naturally vary across organizations and teams. Nevertheless, having a well-defined definition of ready enables transparent communication about the progress of analyzed stories, both among team members and with managers and external stakeholders. When project managers or development leads inquire about the status of a particular story, you can readily refer to the checklist to gauge the story’s readiness and highlight any obstacles hindering its analysis.
Creating a Definition of Ready for Your Checklist for Grooming Backlog
To craft a comprehensive definition of ready, allocate a grooming cycle to catalog all the analysis activities involved in shaping a single user story. Consider integrating specific items into your checklist from the following areas:
Story Definition Each user story must be adequately formulated. Does the story clearly delineate the user, the intended functionality, and the business rationale behind its development? Furthermore, does the story align with the INVEST criteria for effective requirements? Has the story been sized and appropriately prioritized for the sprint?
Technical Detail The required level of technical detail varies across teams. While experienced teams might only necessitate the story and acceptance criteria to initiate development, newer teams might require more explicit technical specifications, deployment guidelines, interface mappings, and similar details.
Requirements Tool Work Are the requirements accurately recorded in the requirements tool? Are these requirements linked to other relevant objects, such as features, epics, and preceding stories? Establishing connections between each story and a business objective is vital to ensure proper prioritization.
Sequencing Where does the story fit within the sequence of the overall feature or epic? Does it have any external dependencies? Are other teams reliant on this particular user story to initiate the development of other functionalities? Determine how this story fits into the sprint’s sequence.
Acceptance Criteria Before development commences, the testing team must review and validate the acceptance criteria. Do these criteria provide a comprehensive outline? Do they cover both positive and negative scenarios related to the user story?
Communicate More Effectively with a Checklist for Grooming Backlog
By embracing this checklist-driven approach to grooming, you can foster a more streamlined and systematic process. Not only does it enhance the clarity of what constitutes a “ready” user story, but it also empowers your team to communicate effectively with stakeholders and minimize roadblocks during the analysis phase.
