Delivery Reimagined

Product Delivery Playbook >> Planning and Tracking >> Backlogs

A backlog is a prioritised list of work that a team needs to complete. It serves as a single source of truth for all the items that need to be developed, ensuring that the team is always working on the most valuable tasks. Effective backlog management is crucial for successful product development, providing clarity, direction, and flexibility.

Who Manages the Backlog?

The primary responsibility for managing the product backlog lies with the Product Owner. This individual is responsible for defining the product vision, gathering requirements from stakeholders, and prioritizing the work for the development team. The Product Owner ensures that the backlog is aligned with the overall product strategy and delivers the most value to the customers and the business.

While the Product Owner has the final say on the prioritization of the backlog, it is a collaborative effort. The development team provides valuable input on the technical feasibility and effort required for each item. Stakeholders, such as customers, sales, and marketing teams, also contribute by providing feedback and insights that help shape the backlog.

The Tiers of a Backlog: From Broad Vision to Actionable Tasks

A well-structured backlog is typically organized into a hierarchy, breaking down large, complex ideas into smaller, manageable pieces of work. This hierarchy helps in planning, tracking, and executing the product roadmap effectively.

Epics

An Epic represents a large body of work that can be broken down into a number of smaller stories. It is a high-level placeholder for a significant feature or a new product initiative that will likely take multiple sprints to complete.

Example: For an e-commerce website, an Epic could be "Implement a Customer Loyalty Program."

Features

A Feature is a distinct piece of functionality that delivers value to the end-user. Features are the building blocks of a product and are typically derived from Epics.

Example: Within the "Implement a Customer Loyalty Program" Epic, a Feature could be "Points-Based Rewards System."

User Stories

A User Story is a short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system. They typically follow a simple template: "As a [type of user], I want [some goal] so that [some reason]."

Example: For the "Points-Based Rewards System" Feature, a User Story could be: "As a registered customer, I want to earn points for every purchase so that I can redeem them for discounts on future orders."

Tasks

Tasks are the most granular level of the backlog and represent the specific actions that need to be taken to complete a User Story. These are the technical to-do items for the development team.

Example: To complete the above User Story, Tasks might include:
- Design the user interface for displaying loyalty points.
- Develop the backend logic to calculate and award points.
- Create a database table to store customer points.
- Write automated tests for the points calculation.

Prioritisation: The Art of Stack Ranking

With a long list of items in the backlog, it's crucial to have a clear method for deciding what to work on next. Stack ranking is a simple yet effective prioritization technique where backlog items are ordered from most to least important.

In a stack-ranked backlog, there is only one number one priority, one number two, and so on. This forces the Product Owner and the team to make deliberate decisions about the relative importance of each item, eliminating the ambiguity of having multiple "high priority" tasks. The item at the top of the stack is the next one the team will work on.

Product Backlog vs. Sprint Backlog: What's the Difference?

While both are essential components of the Scrum framework, the product backlog and the sprint backlog serve different purposes and have different scopes.

Product Backlog

The product backlog is the master list of everything that needs to be done for the product. It is a dynamic and evolving artifact that contains all the features, enhancements, bug fixes, and other work required for the product. The Product Owner is responsible for maintaining and prioritizing the product backlog. Think of it as the entire "wish list" for the product.

Sprint Backlog

The sprint backlog is a subset of the product backlog. At the beginning of each sprint (a time-boxed period, usually 1-4 weeks), the development team selects a set of high-priority items from the product backlog that they commit to completing during that sprint. This collection of items becomes the sprint backlog. The development team owns the sprint backlog and is responsible for managing their work to achieve the sprint goal. It represents the "to-do list" for the current sprint.

A simple analogy is planning a dinner party. The product backlog is the entire cookbook of all the dishes you could possibly make. The sprint backlog is the specific menu you've chosen to cook for this particular dinner party.