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. 


    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #28 - Plan less and deliver more using WIP limit in Zoho Sprints

      Hello, It's been a while since we met with a quick, interesting tip. As the saying goes, "Too much of anything is good for nothing", today the focus is on delivering your outcomes with the right amount of planning. Your plan should be practical, calculative, and achievable for driving a qualitative success.    Laura's plan   Laura has a habit of planning her project deliverables before assigning work to her team-mates. Once the plan is finalized, she schedules a general meeting with her team and

    • Tip # 3- Working on the Scrum board

      Continuing from our Tip #2 on leading to a sprint, let's see how to manage the work items on the Scrum board.  Once you start the sprint your work items are automatically displayed on the Scrum board where you will actually manage the work items. It is a snapshot of the backlog items identified for the current sprint.    The layout of the Scrum board Simply put, the scrum board is just like a physical board with sticky notes on which the work items of the active sprint are displayed.  The scrum board

    • 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

    • Tip #1- Why swimlanes?

      Lanes define a clear path to reach your destination. In Agile, swimlane is one such concept that sets a simple and clear process of the work that you do.   The concept of swimlane can be related to the pool, where the swimmers gather in their respective lanes to start off. Similar to the pool, work items are grouped in different categories. Each category is referred as a lane and is displayed in horizontal format. Swimlanes are effective in categorizing the work items with respective to specific

      • Recent Topics

      • DORA compliance

        For DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) compliance, I’ll want to check if Zoho provides specific features or policies aligned with DORA requirements, particularly for managing ICT risk, incident reporting, and ensuring operational resilience in

      • Files Uploaded to Zoho WorkDrive Not Being Indexed by Search Engines

        Hello, I have noticed that the files I upload to Zoho WorkDrive are not being indexed by search engines, including Google. I’d like to understand why this might be happening and what steps I can take to resolve it. Here are the details of my issue: File

      • Zoho Creator Upcoming Updates - December 2024

        Hi all, We're excited to be back with the latest updates and developments on the Creator platform. Here's what we're going over this month: Deluge AI assistance Rapid error messages in Deluge editor QR code & barcode generator Expandable RTF and multi

      • Customer can't comment on SO or Invoice

        Hi I just saw that my customers are not able to submit a comment either on invoices or sales order. What happens if my customer hits submit is just nothing. only a red line appears on top of the page which probalby indicates an error. I'm not able to

      • Zoho Creator customer portal limitation | Zoho One

        I'm asking you all for any feedback as to the logic or reasoning behind drastically limiting portal users when Zoho already meters based on number of records. I'm a single-seat, Zoho One Enterprise license holder. If my portal users are going to add records, wouldn't that increase revenue for Zoho as that is how Creator is monetized? Why limit my customer portal to only THREE external users when more users would equate to more records being entered into the database?!? (See help ticket reply below.)

      • See Calendar When Creating Meetings On Record Page

        It would be a great user experience to see you calendar while you are creating a meeting on a record page. Here is how I imagine it could look:

      • Saved filters, layout rule support, related list quick navigation, and more

        Hello Everyone, We're excited to share some new features and enhancements in the Zoho CRM iOS and Android apps that will improve your mobile experience. These updates will make your CRM journey more efficient and user-friendly. Here's a look at what's

      • Power of Automation: Automatically send an email to all portal users with today's list of Open tasks.

        Hello Everyone, A Custom Function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as to when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:-

      • Introduction of Robotics Process Automation in Zoho products

        It will be great if Zoho can start advancing from automation to robotics process automation. For a start, it can be started with smart document understanding. Provide OCR engines Google cloud, Microsoft Azure Computer vision OCR, Microsoft OCR, Omnipage

      • Lock a custom field on a deal record but keep all other fields editable?

        I have a custom field, which auto-populates a job number upon converting a lead to a deal but the automation breaks if someone accidentally edits that field. I want to lock that field but keep all other fields open. Is this possible? I've tried through

      • Add Feature To Hide Plugin Sections On Record View

        Hi team, I'm trying to help a client tidy up their CRM. When it comes to record view some sections and fields are visible no matter what Layout Rules are applies and they are not removeable from the layout editor. I would like to see an option to hide

      • Creator Simplified #10: Predefine Form Field Values and Make Them Read-Only for Users

        Hey Creators, Ready for this week's tip in the Creator Simplified series? Today, we will explore how to have read only fields in a form. Use Case: Assume a scenario where the default value for a Department field needs to be English Literature, but you

      • fetch records from analytics table from creator

        I have a creator workflow that I am working in that will compare data from within the app to a table in zoho analytics. Is there a way to fetch a record from Analytics? I have attempted a custom connector with analytics and tried to use it with invoke

      • Ability to Change Custom View After Cadence Creation

        Dear Zoho Team, I hope you are well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Cadence feature in Zoho CRM. Currently, during the creation of a Cadence, we can select a Custom View under the "Who is this for?" section. However, once the Cadence is

      • Zoho Creator Integration with QuickBooks: A Step-by-Step Guide

        Introduction: Integrating Zoho Creator with QuickBooks allows you to sync your business data between the two platforms, providing a seamless experience for managing accounting, invoicing, and financial data. This integration helps automate workflows and

      • Note not being pulled for other modules in email template

        Hi there, Currently i am creating an email template that is able to pull the data from notes field in estimate module and email it to procurement team where they will be able to receive the email with the contents of the note, i am unable to replicate

      • No Sales Returns on SO's with Dropped Shipped items + Inventory Items

        We have encountered an issue in Zoho related to sales orders that include both dropshipped items and inventory items. Specifically, it is currently not possible to create sales returns for the company’s own inventory items from these sales orders. This

      • Pre-fill TO and CC fields for Email Templates

        This would be a game changer to be able to set either specific email addresses or merge fields based on deal role titles into email templates. Please pass this along to *hopefully* add to future features of Zoho CRM.

      • Pick list - Cannot save list "Special Characters not Allowed" error message

        Bulk uploading values. All values are pretty standard - with the exception of a "-" (dash). Like:  Industry - Prepared Food Is the simple dash a special character too? Jan

      • Flow with CRM

        Hello, I have a simple flow that uses a web hook to enter data into a Sales Order. I have the web hook sending Flow data which has a PO field. If the PO has a special character like - or / or \ the task fails. How can I get the flow to be okay with the

      • Making the Resolution Tab Mandatory

        Hello Everyone! This edition is here to show you how to make the Resolution mandatory when closing a ticket. The Ticket Resolution tab helps keep a record of the solution provided for the ticket query. The resolution can serve as a quick reference to

      • Remove County field from Customer Address input screen (or allow input to be deleted)

        We are in the USA and have just noticed that there is now a County field in the Customer Address input screen (and maybe other areas of Zoho Books, but this is the one affecting us at the moment). County is not important to our business, and in fact we

      • Notificación de cumpleaños

        Hola: Se puede enviar alguna alerta de felicitación al personal que cumple años, que se dispare solo? Si existe como se puede hacer? Saludos

      • Automation#25: Move Tickets to Unassigned When the Owner Is Offline

        Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's Community Series! 'Tis the holiday season—a time when work often takes a brief pause. The holiday spirit is in full swing at Zylker Techfix too, with employees taking some well-deserved time off. During this period,

      • Callback URLs

        I need to connect to an external service through an API that requires me to provide a Callback URL so that a status update can be sent back when the API request has been processed. Is there a way to do this in Creator without having to use a middleware

      • Email signature not being included if user creates ticket / sends email

        When I create a ticket (send email), the signature doesn't appear to be added to the ticket. Can you confirm if this is the case? It would obviously be useful to include the user's signature even when sending a client an email and not only on replie

      • Zoho Notebook window ignores taskbar

        When maximized to full screen, the Zoho Notebook window ignores the presence of the taskbar and overlaps it. What could be the problem? Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon. Zoho Notebook 3.2.0

      • URL for job opening

        I would like to ask you to add this feature to the product: create an unique url for each job opening on Zoho Recruit, so that I can add a link to it when I post the opportunity in a mailing list or on a forum.

      • Document images

        We used to be able to rotate the images but this has now been removed ???

      • VENDORS ARE NOT SYNCHED WITH CONTACTS IN CRM

        Hello, While the ACCOUNTS and CONTACTS (Including the primary contact) are synced with the CONTACTS module in CRM, the vendor's CONTACTS are not synced with CRM - which basically forces the users to re-enter all vendor's contacts twice and then update

      • Involved account types are not applicable when create journals

        { "journal_date": "2016-01-31", "reference_number": "20160131", "notes": "SimplePay Payroll", "line_items": [{ "account_id": "538624000000035003", "description": "Net Pay", "amount": 26690.09, "debit_or_credit": "credit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000403", "description": "Gross", "amount": 32000, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000427", "description": "CPP", "amount": 1295.64, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000376", "description":

      • KB Templates

        * It would be nice if Zoho can provide users an option to create custom templates for KB articles. Also, it would be nice as well if the users can have an option to 1.) select a default template and 2.) declare default tag/tags, for KB articles created through Ticket's resolution.

      • Zoho CRM Reports Module on Mobil App

        I have the mobile app and the reports module doesn't appear in the sidebar for some reason. I saw a Youtube video where the user had the Reports module on mobile. Is there a setting to show it on mobile? Thanks.

      • Contacts Don't Always Populate

        I've noticed that some contacts can easily be added to an email when I type their name. Other times, a contact doesn't appear even though I KNOW it is in my contact list. It is possible the ones I loaded from a spreadsheet are not an issue and the ones

      • Zoho Projects Android app update - List view enhancement

        Hello, everyone! In the latest android version(v3.9.15) of the Zoho Projects app update, we have enhanced the List view of tasks. We have also introduced a complete scroll of the tasks in the list view without scrolling the task fields(status, start date,

      • On the US Data Centre rather than the UK but dont know how to migrate it

        We have a new staff member with an external email address and cant add them to Zoho chat - we have been told its becuase we are in the UK but on a US Data centre - we therefore need to change it but no idea how to can anyone else as we are going round

      • Zoho Sheet Custom function column showing Error #EVAL!

        Hello I have a custom function in Zoho Sheet developed to convert a date time from one time zone to another. The custom function takes date and time columns and then using subHour( ) converts the time to PST time. However, though the custom function works,

      • How to add a Data Updated As Of: dynamically in text?

        I need to add a "Data Updated As Of" in the dashboard to show when was the last date the data was updated. I tried to create a widget but it does not look really good, see below. Is there a way I can do this through the text widget and update it automatically

      • Create Your Own Issue Management System

        Effective issue management is a cornerstone of project success. Every bug or issue, no matter how small, needs to be tracked and resolved in time to maintain project momentum. In this post, we’ll explore how an issue management system in Zoho Projects

      • Resource utlisation

        Dear Team, We use the excel for the weekly predicted people utilization how the resource are allocated , is there any way that i can use any of the zoho products.

      • Next Page