Manage Your Backlog Before It Manages You

Let’s have a look at the case of the two product teams. 

A development team works with a product team for over a year. During this year, the product team dutifully attends backlog meetings but the development team’s business analyst pushes and makes their decisions for them. They also dutifully attend Sprint Reviews but nobody ever says a word there either. You see, this product team has been about as hands off as they could be. 

Every quarter, the product team has an offsite meeting to discuss the roadmap. At one of these meetings, someone suggests that they actually test the product. After this belated test, the product team determines that the product needs significant rework. The rework is completed, and another cycle of meetings happens. This time, leadership actually attends the meetings. After much discussion with the Agile Coach, management comes to the conclusion that this is the wrong product team, and the team is replaced.

The new product team knows the subject matter, is committed to being involved, and immediately starts testing the product and writing user stories. At first the development team is ecstatic. Here is a product team that is going to be engaged. And then all of the sudden the backlog doubles in size, and then it triples. 

Now every email to the scrum master is the product team asking for items to be pushed up in priority. Next thing you know, there are so many high priority items that the product team asks for releases every 2 Sprints instead of 10 Sprints. Everyone wants to do a great job, but the development team is getting whiplash from all of the changes and is showing signs of burnout.

Here, the team isn’t managing the backlog, the backlog is managing the team.

Here, the team isn’t managing the backlog, the backlog is managing the team. In the first instance, the product team was too hands off, and in the second, too hands on. What can the product team and the scrum master change to reverse this runaway train?

The key is to always manage the backlog, not the other way around. Here are 3 pointers to streamline your backlog:

• Ensure that all stories are properly refined and estimated. Estimate the pace realistically for the capabilities of the developers, and check that they have what they need at the start of each Sprint. 

• Understand the velocity of the team. Manage what goes into a Sprint based on the team’s capacity to complete it.

• Order the backlog based on the programme or product roadmap. Enthusiasm can be dangerous if it is not harnessed for good. The roadmap should be closely aligned with the product strategy, and prioritisation should be driven by the product goals.

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About the Author:

INDRA A. BOOKS

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