Finding something to say within a zettelkasten-based writing framework is relatively easy. One is regularly writing down their ideas with respect to other authors as part of "the great conversation" and providing at least a preliminary arrangement. As part of their conversation they're putting these ideas into words right from the start.

These all follow the basic pillars of classic rhetoric, though one might profitably take their preliminary written notes and continue refining the arrangement as well as the style of the writing as they proceed to finished product.

First gut reactions can be highly valuable and should be noted because it's incredibly difficult to remember what it was like before you knew a thing. It's hard to revisit a thing with beginner's eyes and those reactions can help one to improve and refine a thing.

The idea that refinement is a social process is a powerful one, but it is limited by the society's power structures, scale, and access to the original material and least powerful person's ability to help refine it.

It used to give me a good reason to point to the Scrum Guide when the team was annoyed by the number of refinement hours during a sprint.

With more experience, it becomes clear that the number of refinement hours spent should not depend on the Scrum Guide but on the readiness of work. A better measure, and this differs from team to team, is how many stories shall be ready at all times? One to three sprints worth of ready work? At least enough work should be ready before Sprint Planning, so that the actual sprint delivers done work (and not more refinement work, only.)

Refinement hours spent also depend on how predictable the work is on the Product Owner’s roadmap and if there is a need to do first iterations of refinement on future releases, months away to have a very high level estimate of effort.

Opinions?