A Comprehensive Guide On Product Backlogs In Scrum

At times, an organization's team often commits the same errors while developing a product(s). Business leaders realize that some aspects of product development are not proceeding as expected and, thus, make necessary tweaks to refine the entire process.

In such cases, a product backlog helps product teams decide their mission-critical goals and elements that demand attention. Moreover, for today's C-suite executives, one of the most crucial strengths is the potential to transform their business into a flexible and resilient organization. Hence, shedding light on scrum backlogs is tremendously vital.

This blog will take readers through the nitty-gritty of product backlog management and its benefits.

Scrum Product Backlogs - Overview

In scrum, product backlogs are a well-defined, prioritized list of features or work items (tasks) that help businesses meet their product objectives and set expectations among contributors. Simply put, they are to-do lists that elaborate how product teams will execute the idea drafted in an Agile blueprint.

Being one of the seven scrum artifacts, the development team creates the product backlog based on a roadmap and its requirements. The most important work items gather the top spots to enable product teams to determine the tasks that must be completed first.

Adobe Creative Cloud suite makes a suitable product backlog example. Creative Cloud is the parent product, with subsets such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects harbored inside it. All these subsets would have their own backlogs and dedicated teams for development.

Components of the Scrum Product Backlogs

Product backlogs in the scrum methodology typically include:

Bug fixes

Bugs are issues identified by users who bypass quality checks and control during product development. While some bugs are crucial enough to disturb a team's ongoing sprint, others can wait for the following sprints. That said, a general rule with bugs is to keep them at the top of the Scrum backlog to preserve the product's integrity.

Technical debts

Technical debts contain the work needed to maintain and keep the product stable and updated. When development teams push technical work to the bottom of the scrum product backlog, it stocks up and becomes harder to achieve.

Redesigning some aspects and updating on new third-party library architecture is a good case in point. Snowballing technical debt, deliberately or unintentionally, leads to delayed product launches.

Effective product backlog management helps avoid the accumulation of technical debt. When product teams remain organized and perform technical work in smaller, regular increments, they are less likely to accrue interest on a significant chunk of work.

Features

A feature - also called a user story - is a product functionality that users find beneficial. Some features can be complicated. Developing story maps can help product teams figure out the most sought-after functionalities.

Knowledge acquisition

Knowledge acquisition involves gathering critical insights to accomplish existing and upcoming tasks. Essentially, this is a research phase. Case in point - a product feature requires further research. In such a case, the product team builds a knowledge acquisition task, including prototyping, experimentation, or proof-of-concept (PoC), to accumulate the necessary information to work on the feature.

Benefits of Scrum Backlog Management

Using product backlogs in scrum provides businesses with several benefits, including:

Boosting workforce productivity

By prioritizing tasks based on their severity or importance, product teams can manage their time better. In other words, they will have to spend less number of hours sifting through tasks, and more number of hours accomplishing critical work items. As such, they can develop more top-notch deliverables.

Efficient task re-ranking

Product backlogs evolve according to teams' progress and task completion rate. When development status changes, product owners might re-prioritize tasks on the scrum backlog. This flexibility prevents tasks from remaining unassigned for a considerably longer period. Moreover, product teams can tweak their operations to conform to these changes more effectively.

Easy addition/removal of items

Product backlog in Agile helps avoid time wasted debating the usefulness of an idea based on limited data. When a new idea unfolds, product teams can add a work item as a prompt to analyze the idea further. They can then prioritize considering that idea alongside other scrum backlog items. Conversely, they can remove the item if it does not contribute to the desired outcome.

Trigger communication between stakeholders

Scrum backlog items trigger future discussions about a product feature or idea. Teams do not need to introduce a wholly tested idea before adding it to the bottom of the product backlogs. The idea or item must evoke enough insights to remind product teams what the innovation was.

This way, product leaders can organize meetings and prepare for future tasks beforehand. Additionally, they detect possible defects in the proposed idea before implementing a new update or feature.

Bring everybody together

Scrum product backlogs are a visual representation of the product development process. As a result, relevant stakeholders can establish a consensus regarding a project's present status and the tasks they still need to accomplish. When product teams adjust their expectations through a single resource, they can work more harmoniously toward a common purpose.

Conclusion

Proper planning and organizing are vital for an organization's success. That is where scrum product backlogs play an instrumental role. A well-thought-out backlog empowers product teams to negotiate constant change, reach optimum efficiency, and deliver maximum value to both companies and customers. In addition, bringing a product to the finish line is easier when organizations have a properly generated and maintained scrum backlog in place.

Leveraging the scrum methodology does not need to be an uphill battle. With the right expertise and support, businesses can keep up with the ever-evolving changes and demands.