Are you missing perhaps the most important non-event in Scrum?

To avoid any confusion, it's important to note (especially for Learners taking Agilistix Academy exams ) that Product Backlog Refinement is not one of the 5 official Scrum Events. Rather it's an activity.

A wholly necessary activity, deemed so important, in fact, that in the 2017 version of the Scrum Guide, it was suggested that it can take up to 10% of the entire Sprint capacity for a single Scrum Team.?

Refinement is, perhaps, the most important non-event in Scrum!

So, for a 1-week Sprint, the Developers and Product Owner could spend up to half a day refining the Product Backlog.

The revised 2020 edition of the Scrum Guide removed the 10% restriction entirely, now deeming it "an ongoing activity".

For scaled Scrum with multiple teams working from a single Product Backlog (using Nexus?), Cross-Team Refinement is deemed so important that it has become an additional mandatory event, with no maximum timebox and defined as:

Cross-Team Refinement is ongoing. The frequency, duration, and attendance of Cross-Team Refinement varies to optimize these two purposes.

Further, the Nexus?Guide goes on to say:

Where needed, each Scrum Team will continue their own refinement in order for the Product Backlog items to be ready for selection in a Nexus Sprint Planning event.

So even when scaling Scrum, individual Scrum Team refinement is deemed important enough to be carried out in addition to Cross-Team Refinement.

From experience, I have found that the easiest way to get the Scrum Team into the habit of holding Refinement sessions is simply to agree to book them into the team calendar as recurring meetings during Sprint 1 Planning and inspect and adapt from there.

Is your Scrum Team frequently failing to deliver Sprint Goals or carrying over work from Sprint to Sprint?

Often, the root cause of Scrum Teams failing to deliver Sprint Goals by the end of the Sprint or carrying over unfinished work from Sprint to Sprint, is due to insufficient refinement of the Product Backlog. If this is happening with your teams, try experimenting with collaborating in more Refinement sessions. Remind the Developers that they need to ensure that each Product Backlog Item (or story) can be comfortably completed within a single Sprint.

In practice, for Scrum Teams with short 1-week Sprints, Refinement often takes place for about 1hr or so mid-Sprint.?Refinement frequency and duration depends upon the complexity of the product and environment as well as the team's ability to break down the work into Increments of less than 1 Sprint and making this visible on the Product Backlog.

But regardless of how much time is spent (invested!) in refining the Product Backlog, doing it well, is likely to:

? Increase Transparency (the 1st Pillar of Scrum),

? Assist the Product Owner with prioritisation

? Reduce Sprint Planning time

? Create smaller PBIs with all team members fully understanding the desired outcome

? Highlight dependencies

? Improve the accuracy of estimation and forecasting

? Increase the likelihood of achieving a Sprint Goal

? Decrease the probability of unfinished work ("Leftovers") at the end of a Sprint

? Lead to higher quality "Done" Increments.?

Is Refinement the most important non-event in Scrum? Quite possibly!