ASVPM Meetup: Getting to Ready: Unhiding Work with a Backlog Refinement Board

Our next Agile & Scaled-Value Project Management Meetup hour is scheduled for July 19th, 2023.
Time: 12:00pm PDT / 2:00pm CST / 3:00 pm EDT
Topic: Getting to Ready: Unhiding Work with a Backlog Refinement Board
Our Guest Speaker is Mark Grove

An introduction to the meetup:
Is your team losing its way during backlog refinement? Does refinement contain “hidden” work difficult to account for? Is a Definition of Ready weakly applied? Do you even have one?
Borrowing lessons from the Kanban method, we look at how to visualize a team’s backlog refinement process using a backlog refinement board – ultimately allowing a team to make work more visible to better meet its Definition of Ready. Benefits include improved understanding of work items, an “unhiding” of work, an appreciation for “where” refinement work resides – leading to greater confidence the work item has truly met the DoR prior to sprint planning.
We’ll examine how to identify the team’s refinement steps, how to turn those steps into a visual board, discuss whether a refinement board should follow the same cadence as the sprint board, and team interaction with the board. We’ll conclude with some real-world examples.

Takeaways:

• Identify (at least) three patterns that suggest a visual backlog refinement board could be right for you and your team
• Learn how to create a backlog refinement board using ideas and techniques borrowed from the Kanban method
• Recognize benefits of creating a backlog refinement board
• Review some real-world examples I have used.

The speakers
Mark Grove is an Agile Coach and Managing Consultant with Excella in Arlington, VA. He has over 25 years in the IT profession with the last ten years focusing on coaching individuals and teams while leveraging practices from both the Kanban method and Scrum framework. His coaching and mentoring focus on understanding the flow of work, system optimization, value delivery, and team dynamics. He has developed and delivered numerous interactive training sessions and has spoken at several agile conferences and meetups. Mark is a Kanban University Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Kanban Coach, and a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM, CSP-PO).

ASVPM Meetup Team