Tip#2- Leading you to a Sprint

Tip#2- Leading you to a Sprint



Product Backlog

After the user stories are written and finalized, they are sorted to create the Product Backlog for the project during the Backlog Grooming meeting. This is a master list of all the work items that have been identified for the project and sorted by priority. Requirements are not constant during this period.The Product Backlog is dynamic and is an ongoing process. Every user story in the Product Backlog is customer centric.

The Product Backlog includes:
  • User centric stories based on their priority. 
  • Ballpark estimate of the user stories. 


Sprint Backlog

In the sprint planning meeting the product owner and the team decide on the user stories that can be moved from the Product Backlog to the Sprint Backlog. The team then identifies the items they can complete during the upcoming sprint. The list of the tasks that will be executed by the scrum team in the upcoming sprint is called the Sprint Backlog.

The items in the Sprint Backlog are fixed after sprint planning, and the team will focus on delivering based on this plan. However, changes in the Sprint Backlog will be inevitable as the work emerges or as the scope is negotiated based on customer feedback.

The Sprint Backlog includes:
  • The list of user stories within the sprint in order of priority.
  • The tasks that are necessary to develop each user story.
  • The estimation points, to complete each task. 

Grooming the backlog

Our initial plans will be inadequate, since they are based on insufficient information about what will it take to complete the projects. So instead of investing efforts in trying to sync the project in line with our original plan we also need to spend more of our effort in responding to the changes that will inevitably arise as scrum is more adaptive than predictive.

Grooming includes:
  • New stories can be added. 
  • Existing stories can be prioritized or removed. 
  • Stories can be sliced into smaller chunks or resized. 

Start the Sprint

Once the Sprints Backlog is finalized, you need to start the sprint to really work on the work items. Learn More on how to start a sprint.

What next after you have started the Sprint?

The scrum board. Watch this space for our next tip on scrum board. 


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