Episode Details

Not Every Backlog Item Needs Detail - Mike Cohn

Here’s something I’ve noticed over the years:
Many teams think backlog refinement means making the entire product backlog detailed and “ready.”
That’s not how a healthy backlog works.
A well-managed product backlog should have a gradient of clarity.
Items near the top of the backlog—the ones you’re likely to work on soon—should be clear and reasonably detailed. They should have acceptance criteria, clarified assumptions, and enough shared understanding that the team can confidently bring them into a sprint.
But items further down the backlog should be less detailed.
They might be nothing more than a sentence or two.
It’s not wrong to leave lower backlog items vague. It’s the right and agile thing to do.
For example, imagine you’re building a travel booking website. Early on, you might have detailed backlog items about booking airfare and booking hotels. Those are core features, so they deserve detail.
But you might also have an item about booking cabins on a cruise ship. If cruises aren’t central to your product, that item can stay vague for a long time. It doesn’t need to be “Sprint Planning ready” six months before anyone will work on it.
If you fully refine backlog items far in advance, you’re doing a lot of work on items that will change, move, or disappear.
So rather than trying to keep the whole backlog “ready,” focus your refinement effort where it matters most:
At the top.
Refinement should make sprint planning easier.
That happens when the next sprint or two is well understood—not when the product backlog is documented 50 items deep.

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