How to Manage the Business Backlog

Introduction

The Backlog is the term used for the list of requirements in Scrum and other Agile development methods. Usually the requirements are stated in the form of an User Story or Epic, which is a very brief explanation about what is needed.
There are three different Backlogs:

The Business Backlog – used to store all requirements to e.g. a specific product or system. The requirements at this level is typically expressed at a high level as Epics.

The Release Backlog – is a subset of the Business Backlog, selected for implementation in a Release. The requirements are at this level detailed into User Stories in order to reduce uncertainties about their interpretation
The Sprint Backlog – is a subset of the Release Backlog, selected for implementation in a Sprint.

Here we focus on the Business Backlog!

Who is involved?

Working with the Business Backlog involves different people with these responsibilities:

	Business	Product Owner	Development Team	Users	O&M Team
Create User Story or Epic	I	I	A	A	A
Store, prioritise and estimate User Stories / Epics	A/R	C/I	C	C	C
Maintain Product Backlog	A/R		I	I	I
Legend: R=Responsible;A=Accountable; C=Consulted; I=Informed

What is the input?

The input to the Business Backlog is the requirement from the users in the form of an User Story or Epic.

Which tasks are expected?

The following task should be considered:

Task

Description

Create User Story or Epic

User Stories or Epics are created by various groups. Typically end-users for a product will have requirements to the product, maintenance people have ideas for improvement and so have developers.
When a User Story or Epic is received, the Product Owner check that it adhere to the INVEST criteria.
In case it do not adhere to the criteria, the Product Owner contact the person who submitted the User Story or Epic to get it updated and resubmitted.
In case it do adhere to the criteria, it is added to the list of pending User Story or Epic in the Business Backlog, waiting to be prioritised and estimated.

Store, prioritise and estimate the User Story or Epic

In order to assign a reliable priority and estimate to the User Story or Epic, the manager may consult subject matter expert in business, development and operation and maintenance to get a sound rationale for the priority and estimate.
Priority can be assigned e.g. as a number from 1-100. Highest priority is set to 100 and lowest priority is set to 1.
When estimating the effort to implement the User Story or Epic only a rough estimate is required – order of magnitude. This estimate is used when User Stories and Epics are selected for a Release to ensure the Release is not overloaded. A more precise estimate is made during the Sprint Planning by the team members.
Beside the priority and estimates dependency between a User Story or Epic and another User Story or Epic should be noted, as they may need to be implemented in the same Release.

Maintain the Business Backlog

The Business Backlog is a live archive for the User Stories and Epics related to the business e.g. from the beginning to the end of a products life cycle i.e. User Stories and Epics will accumulate in the Business Backlog.
The Backlog therefore has to be maintained with two purposes:

Remove obsolete User Stories and Epics and
Perform a sanity check on the priority of the User Story or Epic.

An obsolete User Story or Epic is found by looking at how long time it has been in the Backlog without being chosen for a release – the longer time the more likely it has become irrelevant/obsolete for the business.
Priority is a little more difficult – as it in principle requires that all User Stories and Epics has to be revisited on a regular basis. A significant change in e.g. the market for the product can trigger revisiting the list to see if a User Story or Epic has become more relevant/important for the business or the opposite.

How shall the result be Controlled

The Business Backlog is under change control by the Product Owner, who maintain the backlog when accepting new User Stories or Epics or remove or re-prioritise User Stories or Epics in the Backlog.

What is the output?

The output is a well maintained Backlog which is the single source of requirements relevant for the business.

When can we exit?

The process do not stop before the product or services the business backlog support is retired.

Hints and Examples

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