What Is a Product Backlog in Scrum? Scrum Alliance

Similarly, each product backlog should have a dedicated project team. A backlog is essentially a ‘to-do’ list of smaller tasks, all of which need to be completed within a project or sprint. Crucially, a backlog is organized in priority order, so teams always know what they need to focus on next. Engaging in regular and thorough backlog refinement sessions with the project team can facilitate improved alignment and prioritization of tasks. Real-time updates are essential to ensure that the backlog accurately reflects the latest requirements and changes, enabling agile decision-making. Tracking backlog velocity is crucial for predicting project timelines and adjusting strategies accordingly.

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Concrete instances of backlogs in action illustrate how development teams estimate, prioritize, and fulfill backlog items in order to efficiently reach project milestones. These instances serve as practical demonstrations of the implementation of backlog management across various industries. When an agile product team gets together to plan the work for its next sprint, the output of this sprint planning meeting will be the sprint backlog. Then the group will pull the items from this sprint backlog from the more extensive, more comprehensive product backlog. Consequently, product development teams may complete sprint tasks more quickly than expected. For example, particular projects may get unexpectedly put on hold or canceled.

What is product backlog?

Product managers naturally take a macro view of the entire development process, and can easily align the how and why of each key milestone — but the same may not what financial statement lists retained earnings be true for development teams. Sure, the product roadmap is the reference point for the overall vision of a development project. But zoom in a little closer, and you’ll see that the roadmap itself is made up of many smaller tasks. Real-world examples underscore the extensive range of backlog utilization.

Many criticized the backlog as an example of poor sales forecasting by Apple, which saw  a similar situation happen when the firm debuted its Apple Watch product in 2015. One month, the company unveils a new T-shirt design that quickly catches on among college students. Suddenly, it is receiving 2,000 orders per day, but its production capacity remains at 1,000 shirts per day.

Key Takeaways

The team uses the product backlog and their current workload to determine which tasks are feasible to complete within the sprint’s timeframe. If it’s too large, it’s broken into smaller tasks and executed across multiple sprints. The product owner needs to make sure that work is clearly understood by everyone. However, this doesn’t mean that every little detail needs to be documented.

A sprint occurs within a specified timeframe, so the project team needs a well-defined backlog to ensure they stay on track with their tasks. A strong sprint backlog ensures that work can and will be completed during that time period. Sprint backlogs are a powerful tool for project managers, especially those practicing an Agile methodology such as Scrum. If you’re a Scrum master, you’ll find sprint backlogs useful to structure and manage your team’s workload. A product backlog is a list of the new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes, or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome. The product backlog review in Scrum, also known as product backlog refinement, is a regular session where the Scrum team and product owner review, update, and reprioritize the backlog.

When managing a Scrum team of developers, staying organized is crucial for product success. If a great idea is added to the bottom of a backlog of thousands, who will ever see it? Again, keeping a lean backlog (and limiting the number of sub-backlogs) can prevent this problem from ever rearing its head. Sometimes, what seems like a solid, carefully considered idea to one person, may not make much sense to another. Because these groups can sometimes be siloed, the backlog becomes the connective tissue for the whole project and gives everyone an opportunity to view the complete vision.

1. The presence of a backlog can have positive or negative implications.
2. To successfully sort through the backlog and complete items in a reasonable time frame, you and your team must work together and follow the Scrum guide.
3. Real-time updates are essential to ensure that the backlog accurately reflects the latest requirements and changes, enabling agile decision-making.

Once the product backlog is built, it's important to regularly maintain it to keep pace with the program. Product owners should review the backlog before each iteration planning meeting to ensure prioritization is correct and feedback from the last iteration has been incorporated. Regular review of the backlog is often called "backlog grooming" in agile circles (some use the term backlog refinement). A product backlog is a prioritized list of work for the development team that is derived from the product roadmap and its requirements. The most important items are shown at the top of the product backlog so the team knows what to deliver first.

By taking ownership of the backlog, the Product Owner acts as a conduit between stakeholders and the development team, promoting communication and alignment on project objectives. In a world driven by constant change and productivity demands, understanding what a backlog is and how to effectively manage it can revolutionize project management and personal organization. Because they’re often used to capture every idea for product-related tasks, backlogs can quickly get unwieldy. A backlog’s utility lies in the accuracy and volume of its contents and how that enables the product team to prioritize future work.