{"id":1858,"date":"2019-12-31T15:54:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T14:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/?p=1858"},"modified":"2026-04-10T12:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:35:31","slug":"portfoliorefinement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/portfoliorefinement\/","title":{"rendered":"Portfolio Backlog Refinement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Refinement of the <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfoliobl\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Backlog<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> is the process of creating new backlog items, <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">adding<\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> details to backlog items, <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">making<\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> estimates, splitting backlog items, or changing the order of items in the Portfolio Backlog. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Refinement is a continuous process in which the <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioowner\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Owner<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> and the <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/sysarchgroup\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster System Engineer Group (CSEG)<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> jointly detail the Portfolio Backlog items. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The items are examined and revised as the Portfolio Backlog is refined. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">However, the Portfolio Owner can update or have the items in the Portfolio Backlog updated at any time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The Portfolio Backlog refinement is mainly used to prepare the next <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolio-planning\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Planning<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioowner\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Owner<\/span><\/span><\/a> presents<span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> new backlog items to the <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/sysarchgroup\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster System Engineer Group (CSEG) presents<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> and has them estimated by CSEG. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">This is a prerequisite for the \u201cpull\u201d of the CSEG and is often referred to as <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/definition-of-ready\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">definition-of-ready<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">In the case of unclear but highly prioritized backlog items, the CSEG clarifies the <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/systemreq\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">System Requirements<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"> , <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/architecture\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">possible System Concepts and capabilities<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">This can be worked out as a group or a corresponding backlog item can be created as an order for one of the Clusters.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sample agenda for a refinement session:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Portfolio Owner presents proposed changes to the Portfolio Backlog. To answer questions directly, they have optionally invited Stakeholders.<\/li>\n<li>The CSEG reviews, analyzes, and refines the Portfolio Backlog Items that have not yet been sufficiently refined (working through the backlog from top to bottom).<\/li>\n<li>The CSEG estimates the PBIs that have not yet been estimated (or the modified ones) from top to bottom. In doing so, solution options, concepts, risks, and mitigation measures are discussed and documented.<\/li>\n<li>The CSEG inspects, analyzes, and adapts the Portfolio Risk List. Specific risks are linked to the affected Portfolio Backlog Items.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Translated with DeepL.com (free version)<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Estimation of the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">effort<\/span> required to implement backlog items<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Estimates by the entire Cluster System Engineer Group are important for two reasons:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">By jointly estimating, the CSEG analyzes the respective backlog item from different perspectives and enriches it with information such as acceptance criteria and boundary conditions. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The first ideas for implementation are also generated.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The result of the estimation is a number with which individual backlog elements can be evaluated, for example for prioritization. <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">In addition, it is now easy to calculate how many backlog elements can be dragged into a cycle, namely by comparing the backlog elements completed in the last cycles (<\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">organization <\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/velocity\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">velocity<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">).<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">The team uses the <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/planning-poker\/\">Planning-Poker<\/a>\u00ae <\/span><\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">methodology to estimate the effort <\/span><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Estimation of the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">business value<\/span> required to implement backlog items<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The estimation of Portfolio Backlog Items should be done by the <a href=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/clusterpogroup\/\">Cluster Product Owner Group (CPOG)<\/a> together with the <a href=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioowner\/\">Portfolio Owner<\/a>. They know best about the value that can be created by realizing it. Doing this in a relative way, i.e. in comparison to other Portfolio Backlog Items, value estimation can also be done using <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/planning-poker\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Planning-Poker<\/span><\/a><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">\u00ae.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Prioritization can be visualized by the &#8220;Upswing Gravity Field&#8221;, where the &#8220;upswing&#8221; represents the business value and the &#8220;gravity&#8221; the effort.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2418 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field-300x293.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field-300x293.png 300w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field-1024x1000.png 1024w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field-768x750.png 768w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field-60x60.png 60w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/02\/Upswing-Gravity-Field.png 1064w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Further suitable links:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<table  class=\" table table-hover\" >\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Events<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Roles<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Groups<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Artifacts<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/refinement\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Team Backlog Refinement <\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/clusterrefinement\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster Backlog Refinement<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolio-planning\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Planning<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/organisation-sync\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization Sync<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolio-review\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Review<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/organisations-retrospektive\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization retrospective<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioowner\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Owner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioarch\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Architect<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/organisationsm\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization Scrum Master<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/clusterpogroup\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster Product Owner Group<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/sysarchgroup\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster System Engineer Group<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/csmgroup\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Cluster Scrum Master Group<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/org-management\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization Management Circle<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfoliobl\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Portfolio Backlog<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioproduct\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Systems &amp; Applications<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/applications\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">System Platforms &amp; Variants<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfoliodod\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization DoD<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/portfolioimprovementbacklog\/\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"vertical-align: inherit;\">Organization Improvement Backlog<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Refinement of the Portfolio Backlog is the process of creating new backlog items, adding details to backlog items, making estimates, splitting backlog items, or changing the order of items in the Portfolio Backlog. Refinement is a continuous process in which the Portfolio Owner and the Cluster System Engineer Group (CSEG) jointly detail the Portfolio Backlog&hellip;","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,23],"tags":[350,351,352,353,354],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.10.10","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2356,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions\/2356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}