Backlog Management Events — Training Deck
Quickly bring new teams up to speed with backlog management events.
👋 Hello, I’m Vibhor, and welcome to the 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of my weekly Training Series powered by Winning Strategy. Every week, I answer two reader questions and publish 2 posts about Agile Products, Role-Based Skills, and anything else that you need answered about your Career Growth. You can send me your questions here.
On to this week’s question.
Q: I recently got assigned a few teams that are somewhere in the middle in terms of their Agile and Scrum understanding. To evaluate how much detailed training I should provide to these teams, I plan to conduct a bare minimum “do we know this” exercise for backlog management. The teams are on a very tight timeline and can’t waste time on unnecessary things. Vibhor, can you help figure out the scope for this initial training? The team can only spare 45 minutes to an hour.
Thank you for the question.
Your situation is a bit tricky because “backlog management” is a vast subject that requires at least a few hourly sessions to get the team started.
Having said that, I understand that handling the "tricky" situations is our job, so here is my suggestion on how you may navigate this situation.
I have a training deck that touches upon the required terminology while introducing “backlog management events” to new teams. It aims to quickly familiarize new teams with the requirements for maintaining a healthy backlog and the time commitment needed for specific events.
You can use this training deck to “observe" the teams and determine which detailed training associated with backlog management is required.
As you walk your team through this deck, you can ask questions like:
"How do you currently decide which items should be worked on first in your backlog?"
The answer will help you decide if the team needs training on prioritization techniques."What factors do you consider when estimating the size of a user story?"
To decide if the team needs training on estimation techniques."How often does your team currently review and refine the backlog?"
The answer will help you decide if the team needs guidance on grooming sessions."What makes a user story 'ready' for development, in your opinion?"
The answer will help you decide if the team needs training on Definition of Ready."How do you handle dependencies between stories in your backlog?"
To decide if the team needs training on dependency management."How do you currently break down large stories into smaller ones?"
The answer will help you decide if the team needs training on story splitting.
Make sure to take notes of the responses you receive for these questions. Use the last 15 minutes of the session to obtain the team's confirmation on the selected detailed training sessions. Also, inform them that you will send invites for those sessions.
Once you have a list of the topics you must conduct the detailed sessions for, you can prepare those detailed training sessions using the posts at the links below:
You can download the Backlog Management Events training deck using the link below.