Product Backlog Grooming is a meeting that is held near the end of one sprint to ensure the backlog is ready for the next sprint.

The intent of a "grooming" meeting is to ensure that the backlog remains populated with items that are relevant, detailed and estimated to a degree appropriate with their priority, and in keeping with current understanding of the project or product and its objectives.

During a product backlog refinement meeting, the team and product owner discuss the top items on the product backlog and record decisions in the Product Backlog Grooming artifact.

Backlog refinement is really a checkpoint rather than an effort to fully resolve issues.

From this meeting, the following decisions can be made:

	Removing user stories that no longer appear relevant
	Creating new user stories in response to newly discovered needs
	Re-assessing the relative priority of stories
	Assigning estimates to stories which have yet to receive one
	Correcting estimates in light of newly discovered information
	Splitting user stories which are high priority but too coarse to fit in an upcoming iteration.

The Product Backlog Grooming artifact contains the following data elements:

	Product Backlog Item description
	What are the issues confronting this item?
	Identify desired new stories
	Delete stories that are no longer required
	Provide a status of the user story (To Do, Development, Done)
	Identify the Priority
	Reallocate Story Points.

Scroll down to the Agile Product Backlog Grooming example below.