Product Manager, make your nightmare refinements a breeze!

Is getting tasks ready for the sprint a nightmare for you? Here are 10 actions you should take to be ready before the sprint kicks off:

1) Refine backlog items every day, after daily meeting

It’s hard to convince a team to do that but trust me — having 3–5 refinements weekly that last 15–30 minutes are way better than 1–2 every week. It keeps stuff fresh in your head and it’s an easy, ongoing conversation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVBWfx2-RFQ

2) Make your Product due diligence

Present the item to the team when you have all your research, impact hypothesis, and a mature, well-founded idea. If you know what you are doing, you will do way better to convince others to believe in the initiative.

3) Start with a kick-off meeting

Start with a general presentation of the idea and spend way more time providing the context and the motivation. Though people in the room are mostly not products, you all speak the same language. It’s cool to know why you want the team to do what you ask.

4) Include a large spectrum of stakeholders in the kickoff

The more voices that can point out a fault or an issue, the better! You want to discover risks as soon as…