Product Backlog Explained + Examples

It aids in prioritization by enabling project managers to allocate importance levels to tasks based on their impact on project objectives. This helps set expectations with stakeholders and other teams, especially when they bring additional work to you, and makes engineering time a fixed asset. Set up your next software project quickly with Jira’s Scrum Template and visualize, manage, and track work from sprint to sprint. Easily create a scrum backlog to build a queue of issues and start planning and executing sprints. Organizing and prioritizing tasks is vital to help your team focus on what is most important.

When developers push technical work to the bottom of the product backlog, it builds up and becomes harder to accomplish. Effective backlog management can prevent the buildup of technical debt. When your team stays organized and takes on technical work in smaller, daily increments, you’re less likely to accrue interest on a huge piece of work. Occasionally, there are multiple product backlogs with multiple teams working on one larger product. Creative Cloud is an umbrella product, with smaller products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects housed inside it.

In many cases, these lender backlogs resulted in situations where delinquent borrowers were able to remain in their homes for several years without making any mortgage payments. The housing recovery did not begin in earnest until such backlogs were mostly cleared. Find out how to create agile boards in Jira with this step-by-step guide.

Real World Examples of Backlogs

1. These are short development time blocks, usually, a couple of weeks or a month, during which the team works on a limited set of tasks.
2. One common method of classifying backlogs is by their priority levels.
3. If you’ve ever had to manage a ‘to-do’ list, you’ll know that they don’t always work as well as expected.
4. The more complex the backlog setup becomes, the more teams will lack visibility of their own contributions, which can lead to a drop in motivation.

These might come up during development or testing, slowing your team down. A product backlog can be thought of as an iceberg, with large and ambiguous work towards the bottom, and more defined, ready-to-go work towards the top. Refinement can occur at any time during a Sprint, in a more formal meeting or meetings, on an ongoing basis or as needed. Refinement is not mandatory, however it is a good practice to consider in order to increase transparency and make work items more precise. Product creation begins with an idea, and it takes a dedicated team to create something special. Yes, even the iPhone was once just a prototype that made its way to mainstream popularity thanks to the right team.

With a smooth-running backlog, product managers and owners will always know A) what teams are currently working on, and B) what those teams will be working on next. This insight can be gold-dust where section 338 business sale cross-functional teams are spread across geographies or time-zones, as many often are. Perhaps the best way to think of a product backlog is as a “living” document which reflects the progress of the project. It is an ever-evolving list of action items, some of which may be removed further down the line, replaced with more pertinent activities.

Backlog tasks lack the necessary detail to make them actionable

Conversely, the presence of a product backlog item on a product backlog does not guarantee that it will be delivered. It represents an option the team has for delivering a specific outcome rather than a commitment. Agile teams work in focused sprints to complete work, and this method is highly effective for productivity. At the end of each sprint, the product owner and any stakeholders can attend a sprint review with you and the development team to ensure everything is on track. Ultimately, whether used in Scrum or Agile backlog, effective product backlog management is vital to driving progress and delivering value. Backlogs can be classified according to the size of backlog items, status updates, and dependencies among backlog items.

What is Product Backlog?

Sprint planning strategies involve the breakdown of backlog items into actionable tasks and the estimation of effort required for each task. Emphasizing continuous improvement, teams should routinely review and adjust the backlog based on feedback and evolving requirements to enhance workflow efficiency. Backlogs facilitate efficient workflow management by ensuring that the team concentrates on delivering high-priority items first, ultimately leading to successful project outcomes.

Facilitate team discussion.

For example, a new feature may require the user to perform several steps. The functionality required for each step could be turned into tasks (with subtasks added for more complex steps). A product backlog in scrum can be a game changer for many companies.