Backlog grooming, also known as backlog refinement or backlog management, is a recurring event for agile product development teams. It is a process of refining outstanding user stories or backlog items, breaking big items into smaller tasks, and prioritizing those which need to be tackled first. The primary purpose of backlog grooming is to ensure that the backlog is up-to-date with the latest items and user stories, and that the right stories are prioritized for the next development sprint. The process helps product managers explain and align the organization behind the strategy that informs the backlog items.
During backlog grooming, backlog items are discussed, reviewed, and prioritized by product managers, product owners, and the rest of the team. The most common tactical activities that occur during backlog management include eliminating user stories that are no longer relevant, developing and adding new user stories based on changing customer needs, re-prioritizing user stories for the next sprint, providing estimates for stories, re-evaluating story estimates based on new or updated information, and splitting user stories that are too large or complicated for one sprint into smaller, more manageable ones.
Regular backlog grooming sessions keep the overall health and organization of the backlog in check, and help prevent the backlog from becoming a black hole. A groomed backlog helps the product team deliver features more rapidly and keeps the organization moving forward. It reduces the time product managers and product owners spend planning sprints and increases the productivity of everyone involved in the development process.
Some of the benefits of backlog grooming include effective sprint planning, better collaboration, increased overall productivity, and a manageable task list. Backlog grooming is a widely adopted activity by Scrum and agile product teams. It is usually done in a regularly scheduled meeting attended by key team stakeholders, such as product managers, product owners, QA, and others.
