The Sprint Backlog – Part 5
Backlog Prioritization
This is the truth hour for the product owner as it is where the prepared user stories meet the developers and get the feedback whether the tasks are ready for estimation and delivery or not. Usually (but not always) the whole team is present for prioritizing so that later the whole team can take the commitment to deliver the sprint (as they were present when the tasks were discussed and have all the information required).
The items on the top of the product backlog are gone through in more detail, making sure all information required is in the story and estimated using planning poker (e.g. complexity points like 1,3, 5, 8 and 13). Items further down are discussed more briefly and given rough t-shirt estimations (e.g. Small, Medium, Large) to give the product owner first indications on size.
The planning poker estimations are crucial for planning a few next sprints. Rough t-shirt estimations help in further story development and prioritization. It can often be that based on initial t-shirt estimation, a task gets deprioritized in the backlog as the benefit is (currently) not worth the effort required or is so small that it can jump to the top of the list.
Ideally, by the end of a prioritizing session, all the tasks in the product backlog have an estimation, some estimations have been updated in light of new information and the backlog is prioritized. Depending on the teams’ history and the product, full estimation and prioritization of the whole backlog can be difficult to achieve.
The important thing to remember is that a bit more than one sprint worth of stories for the team needs to have detailed story point estimations. This is because only estimated stories can be added to the sprint backlog during the Scrum planning meeting.
59 Seconds Training Video
Master of Agile – Agile Scrum Tester With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)
Introductory Offer: Free Course
Master of Agile – Agile Scrum Tester With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)
What is this course?
This ‘Master of Agile – Agile Scrum Tester With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)’ provides an in-depth understanding of the Agile Scrum Tester roles and responsibilities
You will explore the Agile Scrum project life-cycle, including how an Agile User Story is created, to how we know when it is ‘done’
This course is aimed at those with or without prior knowledge and experience of the Agile values and principles
During this course you will learn the tools needed to succeed as an Agile Scrum Tester
What will you learn?
You will gain an in-depth understanding of the Agile Scrum Tester roles and responsibilities, and you will be able to
- Fully understand the role of the Agile Scrum Tester
- Understand the roles involved in an Agile project
- Create an effective Product Backlog
- Effectively participate in Scrum Meetings such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective
- Identify the roles involves in the Scrum Team
- Fully understand the role of the Agile Scrum Developer
- Understand the roles involved in an Agile project
- Create an effective Product Backlog
- Effectively participate in Scrum Meetings such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective
- Identify the roles involves in the Scrum Team
What topics are covered within this course
You will cover the following topics during this course:
- An Introduction to Agile Project Management (Tester)
- The 12 Agile Principles (Tester)
- Introduction to Scrum (Tester)
- Scrum Projects (Tester)
- Scrum Project Roles (Tester)
- Quality in Agile (Tester)
- Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog (Tester)
- Quality Management in Scrum (Tester)
- Epics and Personas (Tester)
- Planning in Scrum (Tester)
- Scrum Boards (Tester)
- User Stories (Tester)
- The Daily Scrum (Tester)
- The Product Backlog (Tester)
- Review and Retrospective (Tester)
- Validating a Sprint (Tester)
Our Book Recommendations
We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum: