Sprint Planning for a city building-permit portal starts, and the top of the Product Backlog is still an unrefined pile of department wishes. Developers cannot forecast a coherent Sprint. What accountability did the Product Owner miss?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Walking into Planning with a junk-drawer backlog is like showing up to cook dinner with unlabeled cans and no idea what the meal is. The Product Owner owes the team a top of the backlog that is ordered and clear enough to chew on. Perfect permit specs are not the job; ready enough is.
Full Explanation
The Product Owner is accountable for the Product Backlog, including ordering and making items transparent enough that Developers can select work and craft a Sprint Goal. Arriving at Sprint Planning without a refined top of the backlog wastes the timebox and weakens empiricism. Ongoing refinement keeps Planning starting from valuable, understandable items. A pre-Sprint waterfall design or a Scrum Master-authored goal does not restore that preparation.