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Myth: Refinement is a required meeting for the entire Scrum Team

In this post, The Liberators bust the myth that Product Backlog refinement should be done as one or more required ‘meetings’ that must be attended by everyone in the team. They clarified the purpose of refinement in Scrum, offered alternative approaches to do refinement and provided some tips to increase the effectiveness.

Read the complete post here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/myth-refinement-is-a-required-meeting-for-the-entire-scrum-team-b17fb7bc25fa?mc_cid=d2843cbf59&mc_eid=b8b1840566

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Product Backlog Refinement is a Scrum Team Responsibility

This article on Product Backlog refinement shows that Refinement is more than just a meeting where the whole Scrum Team is having a discussion. It requires and involves everyone with shared and special responsibilities. It’s easy to lose sight of the importance of Product Backlog refinement because of your focus on the Sprint. But making time for healthy Product Backlog Refinement makes way for an awesome collaboration and teamwork, building a product that customers really enjoy!

Read the complete article from Jasper Alblas here: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/scrum-trenches-product-backlog-refinement-scrum-team-responsibility

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Why Agile Teams Should Estimate at Two Different Levels

It is very common for agile teams, especially Scrum teams, to estimate both their product backlog and sprint backlogs. In this article, Mike Cohn will address:

  • Why estimating both the product backlog and sprint backlog can be useful even though it seems redundant
  • Why teams should estimate the two backlogs in different units
  • When teams should estimate
  • Whether all teams should estimate

Although I think you should not try to use hours for estimation, I agree using different valuations for an estimation is best. I find using T-shirt sizes for PBIs and Story Points for SBIs work well.

Read the complete article here, and also take note of some excellent comments at the bottom: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/why-agile-teams-should-estimate-at-two-different-levels