How to reduce time spent in Backlog Refinement
In case you are in a Scrum team and have long Backlog Refinement meetings (also called Product Backlog Grooming) then remind yourself two things:
- Backlog refinement is NOT one of the five prescribed events described by the Scrum Guide (see https://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#events). So you can do it in many other ways then sending a calendar invite and booking hours for your team.
- You can limit the time you spent in refinement if you start with the question, “How much refinement is needed?”. Then you can ask questions about each benefit of the Refinement to see how much effort you should dedicate.
Here are some sample questions you can use to ask how much time you should spent in Product Backlog Refinement balanced by how much utility/value it brings to different stakeholders.
The source for this questions is this article https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/art-product-backlog-refinement.
I recommend you to read it all as it describes best how to reduce waste in Product Backlog Refinements.
