Backlog

Management
Syed Ahsan Ahmed

www.agile.org.pk | contact@agile.org.pk | #AgilePK

Today’s Agenda
● Aligning the Scrum team with the customer’s Requirements

● Dealing with customers who do not understand the process of Scrum

● Provide timely and constructive feedback to the team to improve quality of

deliverable

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www.agile.org.pk | contact@agile.org.pk | #AgilePK
Learning Objectives
● How to transforming customer’s ideas into tangible product deliverable !

● How to reply to team for their additional inputs !

● How to plan release and sprints to deliver maximum value at the earliest !

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www.agile.org.pk | contact@agile.org.pk | #AgilePK
About Me
I am Syed Ahsan Ahmed

● PMP Certified
● Working as Project Manager and Product Owner in BroadPeak Technologies
● Managing Backlogs
● Play major role in Backlog Grooming, Planning, Retro Meetings
● Support Scrum Teams
● Major role in Transition of my organization from Waterfall to Agile approach

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www.agile.org.pk | contact@agile.org.pk | #AgilePK
Product Backlog Management

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What is a product backlog?
A product backlog is a prioritized list of work for the development team that is
derived from the roadmap and its requirements

● Epics
● User Stories
● Bugs
● Timeboxed Research tasks
● Other Specification and Requirements (Non-functional)

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What is a product backlog? Cntd..
Benefits of well-prioritized Product backlog

● Release and iteration planning easier

● Broadcasts all the things your team is supposed to spend time on
● Set expectations with stakeholders and other teams
● Internal work that the customer will never notice.

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What is a product backlog? Cntd..
● The most important items are shown at the top of the product backlog so the
team knows what to deliver first

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Pro Tip…

Keep everything in one Issue Tracker

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Basic Concepts for PO’s

Conventional PM Terminologies Agile PBI’s

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Start with the two "R"s
As a PO, you have 2 tools to play around

● Roadmap
● Requirements

Roadmap initiatives break down into several epics, features and each will have
several requirements and user stories.

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Example of Road Map

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Example of Road Map

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Example of Road Map

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What may influence a PO's prioritization

● Customer priority

● Urgency of getting feedback

● Relative implementation difficulty

● Mutual relationships between work items (e.g. B is easier if we do A first)

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Keeping the backlog healthy

● Regularly maintain Backlog

● Near-term and Long-term items

● Keep refining priority

● Avoid changes to Sprint PBI’s which are in progress

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 1: STARTS WITH A (CLEAR) PRODUCT VISION!

TIP 2: AGILE MANIFESTO VALUE 1 AND PRINCIPLE 10

● Agile Manifesto Value 1:

Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools

● Agile Manifesto Principle 10:

Simplicity, the art of maximizing the work not done, is essential
Pareto rule of 80 % of results may come from 20% of effort

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 3: THE SCRUM PILLARS
● Transparency
● Inspect
● Adapt

TIP 4: NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A ‘USER STORY

Don’t try to force everything into the User Story format (Bug, R&D Tasks)

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 5: DOVE – THE BASIC INFORMATION YOUR PBI SHOULD CONTAIN

Every Product Backlog Item should at least contain: DOVE

● Description
● Order
● Value
● Estimate

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 6: KEEP YOUR BACKLOG MANAGEABLE!

● Master the art of saying “No!”

● Use Principle 10 of Agile Manifesto

TIP 7: ORDER ON VALUE, DEPENDENCIES AND RISK

● PBI with highest value in 1 sprint
● Where are (major) dependencies?
● Reduce Risk- Where is the biggest risk (Impact Analysis)

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 8: DO MORE THAN JUST ADDING NEW FEATURES

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 9: SPLIT TOO LARGE ITEMS

Split Items using the SPIDR approach:

● Spikes
● Paths
● Interfaces
● Data
● Rules

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 10: MAKE SURE YOUR ITEMS ARE ‘READY’

● Regular Backlog Grooming Sessions

● Sprint Planning Meeting
● INVEST Principle

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
TIP 11: USE A STORY MAP INSTEAD OF 2G USER STORIES

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12 Product Management Backlog tips
● TIP 12: DETERMINE THE BUSINESS VALUE TOGETHER WITH
STAKEHOLDERS AND YOUR DEVELOPMENT TEAM

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Customer Interaction - Common Problems

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Customer Interaction- Common Problems
● Budgeting and Scheduling Estimates to approve development

● Customer Says: My business does not work as slow as your SDLC Process

● How to deal with unavoidable on-demand tasks in Sprint?

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Customer Interaction- Common Problems
● Client wants to do development in the old approach

● Does not want to be part of Demos

● Give guarantee of deal and budget but in return wants guarantee of work
promised.

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Customer Interaction- Common Problems
Don’t sell the method, sell the advantages

1) Focus on “CHANGE”

2) Focus on “Iterative Development”

Resolves
Complex
3) Focus on “Frequent feedback cycles” Development

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Advice 1: Don’t sell the method, sell the advantages

4) Focus on “Delivering functionality to achieve business value”

5) Focus on “Removing the black box”

6) Focus on “Convince them anyways”

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Questions & Answers Session

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