Product Backlog

Product Backlog

In Agile it is important that the development team knows what it is doing and what it is planning to do at all times. This ensures that there is no confusion or wasted time for the team members as they work on the project and makes it easier to plan for the release of the product. Because of this a product backlog is a necessity.

A product backlog is a list of prioritized work that is taken from the requirements and the roadmap and provided to the development team to pull tasks from going from the most important items at the top, to the least important at the bottom. One of the most important things about the product backlog is that the pace is set by the team, not by the product owner. This ensures that the development team is working at their pace and not overburdened.

As stated before the tasks that are on a part of the product backlog are provided by the roadmap and requirements that would have been acquired well before this stage in the project. The initiatives of the roadmap are broken down into several epics and then each of the individual epics will have several user stories and requirements.

Once you have the user stories they are then broken down again and then organized into a single list for the development team. When provided the epics the product owner could choose to provide a completed epic first, or several epics will be required over time. What epics are chosen to be sent in first depend on a few things such as:

Customer Priority

Urgency of getting feedback

Relative implementation difficulty

Symbiotic relationships between work items (Atlassian)

As soon as you finish the backlog you cannot just let it sit there. It must be maintained regularly as the program progresses. Before each iteration meeting the product owner should review the backlog it make sure it has the correct priorities and any feedback has been included into it. There are a few things to be on the lookout for that may cause the backlog to become unorganized.

The product owner prioritizes the backlog at the start of the project, but doesn't adjust it as feedback rolls in from developers and stakeholders.

The team limits items on the backlog to those that are customer-facing.

The backlog is kept as a document stored locally and shared infrequently, preventing interested parties from getting updates. (Atlassian)

The product backlog serves as the foundation for the project, and even though it may change over time, it an important part of the project and is nessisary for a team to stay agaile and to make the planning easy as well as to make sure the group stays on track throughout the course of the project until completion.

Source

Atlassian. “The Product Backlog: Your Ultimate To-Do List The Agile Coach.” Atlassian, www.atlassian.com/agile/backlogs.