Creating a Product Backlog

Creating a Product Backlog

In an agile environment, the product backlog is a way to help the users develop the product efficiently. The product backlog is a list of user stories ranked from most important to least important. As the project goes on and is being developed, the product owner can change the document at any time, therefore making the backlog an everchanging document for the developers to work with. Then the list gets reprioritized based off what was changed.

To start creating the product backlog, the product owner and team will create a whole list of high level user stories. The stories may start out as epics, which are large user stores, bit will be broken down into clear user stories as the time goes on. It normally sounds like the project backlog is a wish list, but as time goes on, it will be changed to get better and clearer. When the user stories are prioritized they will be ordered but most important to least important. As the development starts, the what ever is next in line to be developed will be taken and worked on just like a queue in a grocery store. This will also help keep track of the project progressions because it shows how much is getting done, and how much is left to develop. This will also make sure that the team is not over cumbered with work. Each team member will only have one task at a time, and when they are done, they will go on to the next task in the queue.

Inn a traditional project, each person has their own product backlog, which makes things very chaotic in the work place. This makes it harder for product owner to organize and coordinate the project. If each member is working on their own backlog, there is no way that the whole project would be finished since there was no way to prioritize the work. When changing the backlog in the agile project, the list can now be added to by the product owner and they can prioritize the work which keeps the whole project organized. This allows the project to run smoothly with no problems.

Works Cited

Rose, Doug. “Creating the Product Backlog.” Lynda.com - from LinkedIn, LinkedIn, 23 Nov. 2015, www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Creating-product-backlog/175962/452760-4.html.