to see how my hair keeps getting shorter and shorter I got the curse of the video how's it going product people my name is Sierra from products plan and today we're going to talk about backlog grooming so backlog grooming is an extremely important and complex topic and agile product management we get a lot of questions about this topic like what is backlog grooming what does a backlog grooming session entail and why is backlog grooming really important let's tackle this topic but before we dive in I have some awesome resources linked for you below so I highly recommend that you check them out after this video now let's get started first what is backlog grooming backlog grooming helps product managers explain and understand the strategy behind different items in the backlog basically these conversations help align your entire team backlog grooming sessions have four major objectives the first is to break down user stories into smaller tasks the second is to discuss each user story to make sure the whole team is on the same page and the third is to make sure that each user story meets the team's definition of ready and lastly sometimes the team will estimate these user stories and assign story points these sessions help keep the backlog healthy and organized and also keep it from becoming a black hole at the end of your backlog grooming session your list of user stories will be prioritized at the top of the list your user stories will be way more detailed and then it'll get more vague as the list goes on so who runs these backlog grooming sessions most of the time it'll be your product manager or your product owner and some teams have their scrum master or their project manager take the lead know what to do my hands and I think about it whoever ends up running the session is responsible for these key things the first one is scheduling the grooming meeting and making sure that everyone important is invited the second one is keeping the conversation on track it's really easy to veer off in different directions so you want to make sure that the conversation is tight and focused the third is moving the conversation forward it's really easy to get stuck in during these meetings but you want to make sure that you still get everything done and the fourth one is sending out a follow-up email to everybody so everyone is on the same page so there are some key members that should be present at all of your backlog grooming session the four key members are the facilitator the product owner are a member of the product team the delivery team or an acquainted 'iv a quick note be careful not to invite too many opinions and ideas only invite the people that are absolutely necessary so how long should these backlog grooming sessions actually be the key to these sessions is efficiency the ideal length for one of these backlog grooming sessions is 45 minutes to an hour now this may seem like a lot of time but if you prepare for it ahead of time you can get a lot accomplished but how should you prepare before the meeting there are a few things that you should do to get in the right mindset the first is to review your objectives the second is to talk to your stakeholders and the third is to revisit those key metrics trust me if you do this review then the actual backlog grooming meeting will be so much easier this way you'll be able to see which items on the backlog are most important and how much value they each have an ideally you'll have the next two or three sprints prioritized before your next backlog grooming meeting be ready to explain what these stories are and why they're important if you can't explain why something is a high priority it probably shouldn't be there now you're ready to start backlog grooming I'm gonna stop right there but I've linked some awesome free resources for you right below this video go check them out and I'll see you next time you