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Backlog: Keeping it Moving
Stale backlogs are something of a nuisance to me. There are usually two places where work gets added to the backlog; the top and the bottom. Eventually the work at the bottom doesn’t get started on, ever. While the work at the top does get done, the middle part grows and grows until there is no point in even refining those stories.
While it’s easy to dismiss this phenomenon as ‘the reality of every day’, there are practices we can borrow from other methodologies that can help out tremendously with keeping your backlog concise, transparent and, most importantly, relevant.
The List
One of the problems is the actual structure of the backlog — the list format. Keeping everything on there as an item you’ll eventually get to is not transparent — you can’t actually say when you’ll get to it, if items keep being added at the top. It’s also lying to your stakeholders — you can’t promise them their important story ever gets done.
Another problem arises when want to discuss the backlog on a level that is not stories. As the backlog only has one dimension — it’s a list after all — you can only move stories up or down, not taking into account feature bundles, co-dependencies, learning curve and so on.
