Story estimates should take place during the Sprint Planning meeting, which has the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Product team.
You should also conduct regular Backlog grooming meeting, also referred to as backlog refinement or story time. It is a recurring event for agile product development teams. The primary purpose of a backlog grooming session is to ensure the next few sprints worth of user stories in the product backlog are prepared for sprint planning. Regular backlog grooming sessions also help ensure the right stories are prioritized and that the product backlog does not become a black hole.
The backlog grooming meeting is done to
- Break down large user stories into smaller tasks.
- Discuss user stories with the team, answer any related questions to smooth out any ambiguity.
- Ensure upcoming user stories meet the team’s “definition
of ready” by adding key contextual information and acceptance
criteria.