Discard-Keep-Discuss

Summary

Discard-Keep-Discuss is a simple technique devised to help teams quickly identify backlog items that are no longer relevant - even if the backlog is as clutter-filled as a regular Skyrim inventory! It can also be applied to any other scenario where you need a team to quickly sort through a list of items - for example, when reviewing action items from retrospectives.

This technique can be used with synchronous, asynchronous and mixed approaches. From my experience, it can take between 10 to 60 minutes, depending on number of items to check (60 minutes is usually for 100+ items).

Instructions

It can be divided in 4 stages:

- Stage 0 (preparation): place all the items to review in the "Discard" column;

- Stage 1 (identify keepers): if there's any item that someone wants to keep, they should move it to the "Keep" column - proceed to the next stage when everyone finished this;

- Stage 2 (identify disagreements): if there's any item in the "Keep" column that someone believes should be removed, they should move it to the "Discuss" column;

- Stage 3 (clarify disagreements): analyze individually each item in the "Discuss" column and agree on a way forward.

Outcome

At the end, your initial list will be sorted in 3 groups:

- Discard column: no one saw a valid reason to keep these items;

- Keep column: someone saw a valid reason to keep these items, and no one saw a reason to discard them;

- Discuss column: these items will have case-by-case decisions.

Feedback

Feel free to get in touch with me via LinkedIn if you have any questions or suggestions (or just want to say how things went when you tried it out!): https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedrohamaro/

Would you like to know more?

You can find a detailed explanation on this article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/discard-keep-discuss-turbo-boost-your-backlog-cleaning-pedro-amaro-tayvf/