Agile Performative Backlog Refinement: When Challenger Safety is Compromised
Article by Sandra Daniel [12 May 2025, Singapore]
Your team holds backlog refinement sessions. User stories are discussed. Estimates are given. Priorities are set. But if the discussions feel scripted, surface-level, or predetermined, backlog refinement is not serving its purpose—it is just performative.
A performative backlog refinement happens when the ritual exists, but challenger safety is compromised. The team mechanically reviews items, but real conversations—the ones that should challenge assumptions, question feasibility, and force prioritization trade-offs are not happening. Key signs:
🚩 Low-risk questions dominate – Team members only ask clarifications instead of pushing back on requirements, feasibility, or business value.
🚩 The same assumptions go unchallenged – Stories move forward without deep questioning of user impact or technical complexity.
🚩 Estimates are performative – Teams give estimates that conform to expectations rather than challenging unrealistic scope.
🚩 Dissent feels unsafe – Engineers hesitate to push back on vague requirements or pushback is met with resistance.
🚩 Priorities are a formality – The backlog is already decided before refinement, making "collaboration" an illusion.
💡 Real backlog refinement should create discomfort. It should force tough trade-offs, challenge existing thinking, and expose risks before they become roadblocks. If yours feels too smooth, challenger safety is compromised, and the process is performative.
Learners sharpened their ability to ask more insightful coaching questions that challenge surface-level backlog refinement and expose underlying assumptions. Some examples include:
1️⃣ “What’s the one backlog item we would immediately delete if we were not afraid of justifying why?” (Reveals items that exist due to inertia, politics, or fear of conflict.)
2️⃣ “Which item in this backlog assumes the least amount of resistance—but will likely face the most?” (Surfaces hidden complexity, dependencies, or stakeholder pushback.)
3️⃣ “If this backlog were built exactly as written, where would it break first?” (Forces the team to challenge weak spots before they turn into real issues.)
4️⃣ “What is the easiest item to approve in this backlog—but the hardest to prove was worth building?” (Exposes work that’s easy to greenlight but may lack real impact.)
5️⃣ “What is something we should challenge in this backlog—but we are not doing so because it is too inconvenient, frustrating, or exhausting to push back on?” (Forces the team to confront avoidance behavior and tackle the tough discussions.)
💡 If your backlog refinement is not forcing tough conversations, it is just a performance. Challenger safety is about breaking comfort zones, surfacing friction, and questioning decisions before they become mistakes.
💬 So you might want to think which one of these questions would disrupt your next backlog refinement the most.
Article by Sandra Daniel [12 May 2025, Singapore]