New Scrum Team- Is it necessary to Add Prod. BackLog Refinement too ?

product backlog refinement is critical for "readiness" of work items else the sprint planning time will be consumed for what should have been done in refinement meetings. It also depends on the experience of product owner & team with the product under development besides quality of stories created & development expertise. if the product, technology to be used, experience with product is vast then there could be shorter refinement meetings. as a guideline ~10% of sprint duration shall be for refinement. So, in my early cycles i consistently maintain less than 10% for refinement and sprint planning is completed in time-box then it gives me an idea that refinement meeting is working well. even then, I wouldn't exclude the refinement meeting just to use the benefits of process.

Two things here - 

1. Product Backlog Refinement is an optional event in Scrum so you can skip that assuming that there is a fair understanding about the product features within the Scrum team and they are able to estimate and prioritize/order them during the Sprint Planning meeting itself.

2. I won't recommend following some of the rules and skipping others till the time team gets used to the other things. I will not recommend missing any of the rules, although guidelines can be accommodated based on the team to team basis.

Hi Vaibhavi, the Sprint Planning meeting is a collaborative effort by the Scrum Team to work out which items will go into the next sprint. As part of that meeting there will be refinement as the Product Owner works with the Development Team to clarify the understanding of the items going into the Sprint. 

Ongoing Product Backlog refinement can also happen at any time as stated in the Scrum Guide:

The Scrum Team decides how and when refinement is done. Refinement usually consumes no more than 10% of the capacity of the Development Team.

So, to answer your question, I'd say it's not necessary but it is likely that for most real-world projects you will need to do refinement meetings. I have seen some teams schedule this from the word go and others call them on an ad-hoc basis when there is a need to refine times at the top of the backlog.

Good luck with your new Scrum team.

The product backlog refinement is an ongoing process, this activity is to add more details and estimates and order to items in the product backlog. You can include this exercise any number of times based on the proceedings of the development team during the sprint.

Is the question was more specifically related to how you start the project? A chicken and egg scenario. You cant refine the items in the backlog before your development team begins, can you start without refined backlog items.

To start the first sprint the development team need have enough understanding to be able to begin work towards the sprint goal. For that to happen there you will have understood a number of backlog items, and where necessary broken down one or more into work - so refinement and more.

As Roddy mentions you will then be into the process of backlog refinement, holding meetings as required (when works for you) to ensure the 'top' (definitely those for the next sprint) backlog items are detailed enough to be understood, clear and estimatable. This process also serves to give your PO a heads up on will need answering or explaining. This helps to facilitate a successful sprint planning meeting, avoiding unanswered questions.

Why not start by doing, and by committing to implement all of Scrum? Each part of the framework is essential, but each and every Sprint is also an opportunity to improve. Has the team begun Sprinting yet?