Refinement

Refinements are one of Agile most important cerimonies. Their goal is to define the scope and estimate the complexity of work items, commonly referred to as tickets, allowing for a clear understanding of the work at hands by all members of the team.

Up until now, in every company I worked for, the tickets were presented and explained by the person that created them. In theory this makes sense since that person is probably the one that knows more about them and that can explain them best.

Recently, in my current team, I had chance to propose and try out a different approach. The idea is simple: instead of having the person that created the ticket to explain it during the refinement session we assign each ticket to a random person in the team that has then the responsibility of presenting it during the session.

How does this approach improves the session you may ask. Some points I can identify are:

  • By assigning the ticket randomly the presenter is compelled to thoroughly read and understand the ticket beforehand. This not only ensures better preparation but also leads to improvements in the ticket’s clarity and completeness, as the presenter must articulate all pertinent details previously held only in the author’s mind.
  • By having the person looking into the ticket before the session we are promoting a pre-analysis that really leads to a more fruitful discussion.
  • Everyone in the team feels more involved in the session instead of having the more senior members of the team, which usually create more tickets, dominating it.
  • More junior member of the team which are usually quieter during the session are now obliged to talk and get out of their comfort zone. This promotes their growth and makes them feel valuable.
  • The knowledge about the systems that the team operates gets better distributed due to the pre-analysis required and due to the improved discussion about the tickets.

To successfully implement this approach, I would advise you to consider these points:

  • Guarantee that you have the buy in of the team to explore this new approach. This is only useful if the team is collectively onboard with exploring it.
  • Guarantee that the ticket assignment is done in advance to allow presenters enough time for preparation.
  • Make sure that presenters come prepared to the session and guarantee that everyone knows that this is what is expected. This is a crucial aspect for this approach to work!
  • Guarantee that the tickets are distributed evenly across all team members to avoid overloading any of them.
  • If you have only a few tickets to refine maybe prioritize their attribution to more junior members of the team. The reason for this is to promote their growth and involvement since they are usually the ones that stay more in the shadow during these sessions.

Since adopting this approach within my team, refinement sessions have become significantly more fruitful. The entire team is more actively engaged in the process, resulting in clearer ticket scopes and better-defined tasks overall. I dare you to try it! :)