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Product Backlog + FREE Cheat Sheet

Episode 134 - 06 Mar 2018

Dummy body

The Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product. That’s how the Scrum Guide describes it…. And the Scrum Guide goes on to dedicate a fair few column inches to it.

The Product Backlog is one of the three Scrum Artefacts - along with the Sprint Backlog and the increment. The Product Backlog sits here - outside of the Sprint “process”... but a key input to it. Without the Product Backlog, there’d be nothing to talk about in Sprint Planning… and nothing to put in to the Sprint Backlog. If I zoom out further to the overall agile flow We see than the Product Backlog is the “vessel” the collection point for feedback received from the the customer - as well as from Stakeholders and from the Development Team. Worth mentioning here that … just as this flow is not unique to Scrum… the Product Backlog is not a “construct” that’s unique to Scrum - it forms part of every Agile Framework I’m aware of.

We have a well-defined way of getting items out of the Product Backlog - that the (ritual - the event) of Sprint Planning. Getting things into the Product Backlog is less well-defined But at least it does have an owner - the Product Owner. We talk much more about the Product Owner in another episode, but when it comes to the relationship between Product Owner and Product backlog…. The Scrum guide could hardly be more clear: The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog.