I've begun to encounter more situations where the velocity of the delivery team starts exceeding the ability of the product planning function to prepare and groom the backlog.

The team has increased it velocity under self-directed pressure to the point where the mechanisms around it - deployment on one side, requirements on the other - are the chokepoint.

This is a pretty good impediment to have. The solution also sounds simple - get more Design and Requirements capability, through cross-skilling, adding people, spending a sprint on requirements and design. There options are there, but in the current business environment, this may not be suitable.

So what's to be done? 

To be specific, this is not the ideal Agile situation where the Product (and Programme) planning level has not prepared an extensive backlog of items planned for the future. This is a team new to Agile, just beginning their cross-skilling journey and chronically short of the Business Analysis and Design capability.

Luckily, the folks at Target Process have provided a great idea - just in time user stories, known as "rolling wave" user stories.

Have a read and let me know what you think!