Initial Product Backlog Refinement

Before you start your first Sprint, you need (1) a Product Backlog with some ready items, and (2) a Definition of Done. Scrum doesn’t name the activity for this, but we’ll use the term initial Product Backlog Refinement (initial PBR, IPBR), because it is similar to regular PBR each Sprint.

Typical activities include defining a vision, discovering Product Backlog items, splitting large items, refining items until ready, identifying risks, defining “done”, and estimating.

Initial PBR is done once and only once for a product—when you first transition to Scrum or when you start a new product. Subsequently, refinement is done in regular PBR.

Create a shared understanding

Shared understanding of both the overall vision and specific items is important to enhance cooperation between the Teams (and others), and to reduce the inflexibility of Teams not being able to accept the ever-changing highest-order items—because without shared understanding they will say, “we can’t do that because we don’t know the requirements.”

Create Definition of Done

This workshop is usually the place to create the initial Definition of Done. How this can be done is explored in the Definition of Done section