One ceremony that I adore goes by many different names. In the past, it has been known as the Grooming session. Today, it is known as a “Backlog Refinement Session.” I actually like this name because it is more telling of what is done during the session. During the session, the team should meet and discuss individual items in the Product Backlog and refine them enough so that the team can adequately determine what needs to be completed.
This session is THE time for the development team to get all of their questions answered by the business and get a complete grasp on what should happen to meet the requirements of the stories. There should be no ambiguity about what needs to be done to complete this story.
This session is also for any QA to ask their questions. (Definitely don’t want to forget about the entire QA department.) The test plans cannot be right if the QA department doesn’t understand what the business is asking for. And I don’t mean, just a vague understanding of the ask either. Make sure to get a deep understanding so that the test plan covers as many of the scenarios as possible.
As the scenario is being reviewed, make sure to think it through. Be sure to cover the upstream processes ( any process that provides data to the process) and downstream processes ( any process that gets data from the process). Be sure that as much as possible you understand how the data should be transformed from what it currently is to what it should be.
But, most of all, make sure that everyone truly understands it. If it’s not understood thoroughly, there is no way that the team can successfully point it. And that, my friends, is the name of the game. If the team cannot point the story consistently, then you and your team will be unsuccessful at grooming.