Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Backlog Refinement Meeting with sample role play by Collabnet

2. Backlog Refinement Meeting .
Notes from the video: I have tried to type the contents in this video as part of my reference.  Please check the video link.

II. Backlog refinement Meeting
Backlog refinement falls outside the scrum, however everyone feels the need to do it. In a two week sprint, typically wk 2 Wed Backlog Refinement Meeting

( 2 hours 1-3pm), typically 2 days before the next sprint.
--(Two week sprint (wk 1 M-F and wk 2-M-F)
--Wk -1Monday- Sprint planning meeting (4 hours- 9 am to 1 pm), wk 2 Wed Backlog Refinement Meeting ( 2 hours 1-3pm), Sprint review meeting 2nd --

Friday (2 hrs 10-12) noon and again 2nd week Friday (2 hours 1-3pm).)
Skit
Team Room: At the backlog refinement meeting, a.k.a backlog grooming, we have a product owner, a cross functional self organizing scrum development

team, scrum master. This team has just started developing a student information system and it helps school track student progress.

Scrum Master: Hello, I'll be facilitating our backlog refinement meeting.  Within 2 hours timebox. WE will attempt to clarify and decompose the higher

priority Product Backlog Items. As you'll recall from our training, any work that represents business value or consumes time and attention from the team

may be worth listing in the product backlog. One objective of this backlog refinement meeting is to create PBIs that are INVEST (Bill Wake)
(INDEPENDENT, NEGOTIABLE, VALUABLE,ESTIMATABLE, SMALL, TESTABLE).  Mr Product owner since you are responsible for the product vision,

and return on investment, why don't you start by telling us your current priorities?

Product Owner: Based on my vision for this product, here are my top priority items:
Grades
Attendance
Even calendar
Alumni Archives
Scholarship award
Product backlog
Product backlog
.....
Oh, I want the pages to look really good. When can you have that done?

Team:  We have no idea! It will be done when it is done! Call us when you've finished writing the requirements.

Quiz 1:
What should the scrum master say next?
No-A. Yes, the development team should wait until marketing department has properly documented all the requirements.
No-B. We're here to refine the requirements together. No one leaves the room until we've refined the entire Product  backlog.
Yes-C. We're here to refine the requirements together. Success at Agile requires business people and the developers to work together daily throughout the

project.


Scrum Master: We're here to refine the requirements together. Success at Agile requires business people and the developers to work together daily

throughout the project. In this meeting let's focus on the top few items only.

Team- tester: I'm just a tester.  I don't know anything about development.  Do you mind if I play with my phone until you start talking about testing?

Quiz 2:
What should the scrum master say next?
No A. I am the scrummaster. That makes you the scrumslave.  I order you to participate.
No B. Since you're only a tester, we don't need you until later.  Give me  your testing estimates offline and I'll add them to the last phase of the project plan.

It's important to maximize resource utilization.
Yes C. Maybe your background and skills were mostly in testing, but now you are a scrum team member. A Scrum development team is collectively

responsible for thin slices of properly tested product every sprint.  Let's ask the team what they think of your involvement.

Scrum Master: Maybe your background and skills were mostly in testing, but now you are a scrum team member. A Scrum development team is collectively

responsible for thin slices of properly tested product every sprint.  Let's ask the team what they think of your involvement.

Team Member-coder: In the past I've just written code and handed it off to another department for testing. You have years of experience with testing. And

now we're in this together.  I'd appreciate your expertise in this meeting.

Team Member- tester: Dude, I do not work for you.

Team Member- coder: Yes you do, just as we work for you. On a self organizing team we all work for each other.

Team Member- tester: oh. okay!

Scrum Master: Since this meeting is timeboxed, I suggest focusing on the top item for now: Grades.  I propose using estimation cards to get a better cross

section of opinions about the effort to get that PBI into potentially shippable form.

(This team like to make an estimation using a game 4 cards per person. ( S, M, L and XL).  We are estimating the effort to complete the grades PBI. Choose

a card, then reveal it at the same time as everyone else.
L, M, S, XL)

Scrum Master: Let's hear the reasoning behind these guesses.

Team Member- coder: S-I picked small because displaying the grades to students is just a few lines of code.
Team Member- tester: XL-I picked Extra large because I can't imagine how we'd start testing such a vague requirements.
Team Member-: L- I picked large because I thought the requirement was to allow teachers to update grades, not just display them.
Product Owner- Actually, what I really want is teachers to be able to update grades, students to be able to view them online, and report cards sent to

parents each semester.
Now I realize I'll need your help refining the grades product backlog Item.

Quiz 3:
Why does grade require additional refinement?
No A. It's not Independant, Negotiable, or Valuable
Yes B. It's not estimateable, small or testable.

Scrum Master: The team seems to feel the grade PBI is actually an epic which can be split into several distinct user stories.  This is one of the purposes of

this Backlog Refinement Meeting.

Grades = Epic ( split to several user stories)
User Story
User Story
User Story
.......

Quiz 4
Do most people use most features of most software products?
No A. Yes. Success depends on pushing hard to get everything done.
Yes B. No. many people wish the 20% of features they actually use the most had been properly tested.

Scrum Master: It turns out most people don't use most features of most products. Even the features they do use can be split into more valuable and less

valuable parts. A well-formed PBI toward the top of the backlog is no bigger than a quarter of a sprint and ideally smaller than that. Maybe we can split the

Grades epic into more valuable parts to get smaller user stories.

Team Member: Generating the report cards will be really hard because it depends onm the reliable third- party PDF libraries.

Product owner: I am willing to put the report cards on the bottom of the backlog, for now, if we can at least allow teachers to update grades online. They

tend to lose their paper records before it's time to turn them in.

Product Owner: Based on my vision for this product, here are my top priority items:
Grades ( without report card)
Attendance
Even calendar
Alumni Archives
Scholarship award
Report cards
Product backlog
Product backlog


Scrum Master: It is often useful to identify who, what and why in a Product Backlog Item.  For Example:

Grades-view grades
Attendance
Even calendar
Alumni Archives
Scholarship award
Report card
Product backlog
Product backlog
.....
View grades: As a student I see my grades online so that .....

Team Member: I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing.

Product owner: Okay, I understand that one now. (As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm

passing.) It has the who, the what and why.  It's somewhat independent and it represents distinct business value.

(As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing.)- INVEST-(INDEPENDENT,

NEGOTIABLE, VALUABLE,ESTIMATABLE, SMALL, TESTABLE).

Scrum Master: If we work together it may be Small enough to get into potrentially shippable form in a couple of days.

Team Member- Tester: At first glance it seems Testable.

Scrum Master: We'll leave room to add some acceptance criteria.

Product Owner: What about Update Grades? As a teacher, I can update grades online so I no longer depend on administrators to do it for me.

Scrum Master:
                Grades
                         As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing. Acceptance Criteria/Done.
                        As a teacher, I can update grades online so I no longer depend on administrators to do it for me.
                Attendance
                Event Calendar
                Alumni Archives
               Scholarship award
               Report Card

Scrum Master again:  As a teacher, I can update grades online so I no longer depend on administrators to do it for me.  Is this more or less important than

view grades?

Product Owner: Prioritize? I want all these features at once!

Quiz 5:
In effective Scrum, how are priorities represented in the product Backlog?
No A. PBIs are grouped into bucket P1,P2,P3 etc.
Yes B. Items on top are most important than items on the bottom. No two items can be exactly the same priority, especially at the top.

Product Owner: I suppose View grades has the most business value. If we didn't finish Upgrade grades, school administrators could still use the legacy

system to upgrade the grades. I wouldn't be very happy about that though.

Scrum Master: Feel free to re-prioritize the product backlog at any time.

Team Member: We're not committing to do the work in this sequence?

Scrum Master: No commitments are made in the Backlog refinement meetings. Later when we get to the Sprint Planning meeting, you'll decide how much

work to take on within one sprint.

Quiz 6:
Who is ultimately responsible for prioritizing the Product Backlog Items?
No A. The ScrumMaster
Yes B. The Product Owner
No C. The development Team
No D. External Stakeholders
No E. No one. It is done by majority vote.

Team Member: Let's try estimating the view grades PBI.
Product owner: As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing. Acceptance Criteria/Done.

(This team like to make an estimation using a game 4 cards per person. ( S, M, L and XL).  We are estimating the effort to complete the grades PBI. Choose

a card, then reveal it at the same time as everyone else.
L, M, S, XL)

Team Member Coder-S: It is just a few lines of code
Team Member 2-S: I agree it is small. The UI design is simple
Team member 3-S: Since this item doesn't alter the database, both the technical risk and testing effort are low.
Team Member 4-M: I disagree. I picked medium because the previous semesters' grades are kept on a different legacy system.
Team Member coder: Oh Yeah, I forgot. Does this have to work with previous semesters, or just this semester?

Product Owner: I hadn't thought about it until you asked. I'm really interested in the current semester. We won't need the previous semesters until later on.
    As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing. Acceptance Criteria/Done.
        View Grades, current semester: As a student, I can see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until I get to school to know whether I'm passing.
        View Grades, previous semester: As a student, I can see my old grades because I lost my report card.

Grades
                         As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing. Acceptance Criteria/Done.
                                  View Grades, current semester: As a student, I can see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until I get to school to know

whether I'm passing.
                        As a teacher, I can update grades online so I no longer depend on administrators to do it for me.
                Attendance
                Event Calendar
                Alumni Archives
               Scholarship award
               Report Card
               View Grades, previous semester: As a student, I can see my old grades because I lost my report card.

Quiz 7: Scrum master
 What is more important objective of the Backlog Refinement Meeting?
No A. To get precise estimate
No B. To get a better understanding of upcoming work and combine it to form larger PBIs
Yes C. To get a better understanding of upcoming work and combine it to form smaller PBIs
No D. To get a better understanding of upcoming work and create monolithic, detailed design decument.

Scrum Master: As a student, I see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until  get to school to know whether I'm passing. Acceptance Criteria/Done.
Revote? L-S-S-S
Team Member 1-L: Looks like I'm the outlier this time. I just realized what a pain it will be to get the table display working on Ethernet Exploiter 6.
Team Member 2- EE6?? I thought we only had to support FingerFly now!

Product Owner: That's correct. The district has banned the use of Ethernet Exploiter, especially EE6.

Scrum Master: Let's make that explicit in the acceptance criteria.
                     View Grades, current semester: As a student, I can see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until I get to school to know
                 
                     Acceptance criteria/Done:
                     Works on FingerFly

Team Member 1-S: In that case I am good with small.

Scrum Master:
                     View Grades, current semester: As a student, I can see my grades online so that I don't have to wait until I get to school to know
                 
                     Acceptance criteria/Done:
                     Works on FingerFly
                      Effort: Small
Quiz 8: Scrum Master

What's the difference between acceptance criteria and definition of done?
No A. There is no difference
Yes B. Definition of done applies globally to all PBIs for a product, while acceptance criteria pertain to specific items.  Acceptance criteria could also form

the basis of new stories.

Scrum Master: Ok, I think that's enough. We've used up our two-hour timebox and I can tell from everyone's body language we're done with this meeting.

Team Member: But we didn't refine the entire Product Backlog!
Team Member: And we never will.

Product Owner: True. But now we have a much better picture than before of what we might do the next couple Sprints.

Scrum Master: Don't forget Agile approaches involve some planning.  We just value responding to change more.  I declare the Backlog Refinement Meeting

over!

Product owner: Backlog refinement meeting is also called
                          a.k.a  Product Backlog Grooming
                          a.k.a  Backlog estimation
                          a.k.a  Story time
The team should set aside for this every single sprint.
For example for a two weeks sprint, the team should take 2 hours break for product backlog refinement meeting

The purpose of the backlog  refinement meeting is to help the product owner to keep the top of the product backlog ready for the next sprint planing

meeting. if there was no product backlog meeting  during sprint execution, in the very first sprint, you will need more time in the very first sprint planning

meeting. Product owner cannot do this alone. The whole team has to help. Agile is business people and technical people working together constantly.

Product owner must make the final call about the requirements, especially the prioritization.  Backlog refinement includes estimation of effort, clarification of

requirements and decomposition of large PBIs into smaller ones (e.g. epics to user stories)

To learn more about Scrum:
refer Scrum Reference card, Example ScrumMaster's checklist.
Tools ScrumWorks Pro, TeamForge, Subversion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_WeHcZcx1w


No comments:

Post a Comment