Artifacts
The three artifacts of the standard framework
Product Backlog
An ordered and emergent list of everything needed to improve the product. It belongs to the Product Owner and its associated commitment is the Product Goal: the long-term objective the team pursues.
- At the start of the project it reflects the MVP or the initial vision.
- It is a living document: it grows, is reordered, and is continuously refined through backlog refinement. See Product Backlog.
Sprint Backlog
- The set of Product Backlog items selected for the sprint, plus the team's plan for delivering the increment and achieving the Sprint Goal.
- Its associated commitment is precisely that goal.
- It belongs to the developers, and only they can modify it during the sprint. See Sprint Backlog.
Increment
Specific, usable result of each sprint.
- It must meet the Definition of Done and may or may not be delivered to the customer, but it must always be in a condition to be delivered.
- Its associated commitment is the Definition of Done. See increment.
Other commonly used artifacts
Although they are not part of the standard framework, they are widely used in Scrum Teams:
- Burndown chart: shows the remaining work and the rate of progress, making it possible to project whether everything planned will be completed.
- Burnup chart: measures what has been built. It is more useful when the product scope changes.
- Definition of Ready (DoR): agreed criteria that determine when a story is ready to enter a sprint.
- Definition of Done (DoD): agreed criteria that determine when a story can be considered done.
Artifacts in teams with AI
Generative AI is beginning to change how teams work with Scrum artifacts:
- Assisted refinement: AI tools can help write user stories, suggest acceptance criteria, or spot ambiguities. They shorten refinement time, although judgement about priority and value remains human.
- Extended Definition of Done: in teams building features with generative AI, the DoD may include criteria such as "the output has been reviewed by a human" or "the hallucination rate is below the agreed threshold."
- Increment documentation: language models can automatically generate release notes from the commit history or the completed stories, reducing the team's administrative workload.
Common mistake
Treating the Product Backlog as an exhaustive requirements document. The Product Backlog is not a complete specification: it is an ordered list of what the team knows so far. Trying to define it in full at the start of the project is a symptom of predictive management disguised as agility. Items that are far off in time should carry little detail; detail is added during refinement, when the team is closer to working on them.
Resources
📄 Scrum Master v.4.0Free download · Scrum Manager
📄 Scrum Master en equipos con IA [Scrum Master in teams with AI, in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager
🎙️ Ep. 2: Cómo crear un backlog [Ep. 2: How to create a backlog, in Spanish]Scrum Manager Podcast · Spotify
🎙️ Ep. 6: Definition of Done [in Spanish]Scrum Manager Podcast · Spotify
See also
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