From the course: Agile Business Analysis

A healthy backlog

From the course: Agile Business Analysis

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A healthy backlog

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- One of those difficult things the team determines is what to build. These decisions can make a huge difference in the success of a team. As an Agile BA, you likely spend a lot of time getting to know the product backlog, and you have a big influence in helping the product owner and team make good decisions about what to build and in what order. A product backlog is a prioritized list of what the team will deliver. A healthy product backlog is critical to ensure the right stuff is being worked on. This means the team is building things that matter. Each item will add value to the customer and is aligned to organizational strategies. A few key aspects to a healthy product backlog. First, it's in plain language, and it's about user value. It's not about the technical components and technical tasks. Next, not everything is committed to on the product backlog. Items can be added or removed as they're prioritized or deprioritized based on the team's learning and changing circumstances. And last, it's prioritized. Now I like to prioritize it into three levels, product level, which these items are not prioritized yet, then later releases, near-term releases, and next up, where the next up is ranked 1 through 10. The next up items are the most detailed and can include your in-progress items ranked by priority. This helps the team focus and set expectations with stakeholders. This helps you and the product owner, as well as the team, focus on the details of the highest priority items, leaving those further out less defined and open for change. We honor the Agile concept of welcoming change by minimizing the amount of effort we apply to the backlog items that are lower priority. The product owner and BA create and manage the backlog together. Backlog items come from your observations, experiences, analysis, product performance data, requests, and the team's learning. BAs work with the product owner in this regard to do these things. First, help determine where items go on the backlog according to the strategic priorities. Then analyze the backlog holistically for duplicates and gaps, and add items based on your analysis. And last, work with the team to refine the backlog at the product, release, and iteration levels. You may be thinking, "We have plenty in the backlog from requests. We don't have time for backlog analysis." Well, the hard truth is that many of the requests may not be what's actually needed, nor what delivers value. Really good backlogs consider the bigger picture, analyze for value and strategic alignment. Healthy backlogs use the team's learning and data evidence to inform what needs to be on the backlog. And often items added from analysis provide more value than what's actually requested. A healthy backlog is worth the work to make sure the team is focused on building the right things at the right time.

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