Agile fundamentals for teams

In this video, we’re going to give you some practical tips to help create your Backlog. Your backlog contains the items that will go into our product. A good backlog will align with the goals on your Roadmap. 

The problem with some Backlogs is they can be too long and detailed. As a result, they can become time consuming to manage and difficult to work with. So we're going to look at ways to avoid that happening. 

One approach is remember the acronym “DEEP”, when managing your backlog. 

First, it’s important to ensure that each item has the appropriate level of detail. 

The items near the top, should be the ones that you are ready to work on. So these items should contain the highest level of detail. This ensures that everyone is clear about exactly what to do, when they begin to work on them. 

As we work our way down the Backlog, the readiness of the items will decrease. They will be items that you may work on in future, but they’re not ready yet. As a result, it makes sense for the level of detail to also decrease as we work our way down. These items may evolve or change completely, as the product develops and you learn new things. So adding high levels of detail to these isn’t adding much value and may be a waste of time. As these items get closer to the top of the backlog, the level of detail should increase. 

This approach will keep your backlog concise. It also allows you to focus your time and efforts on the items that are ready. 

Items in the backlog, especially the ones closer to the top, should each have an estimate. This helps you when it comes to planning. We’ll look specifically at techniques to help with this in another video. 

Next up is Emergent. A backlog isn’t a list of items created at the start, for you to work their way through. Instead, it will evolve over time based on what you learn from the things you’ve delivered. As a result, you will add new items, update others, or even remove some, as the product develops. 

Finally, you should prioritise the items in the backlog. Usually, the highest priority items at the top and the lowest at the bottom. Once you complete an item, it’s removed from the Backlog, so items will work their way towards the top. 

There’s a range of different ways you can prioritise items. But there’s no one size fits all approach. Choosing the right method will depend on your team and your product. You may need to look at a few of these methods before settling on what works best in your context. But once you've chosen an approach, stick with it for a while at least. Changing this too often, can cause confusion and do more harm than good. We’ll look at one approach for doing this later in the course. 

It’s important to involve others when prioritising items. This will ensure everyone has a good understanding. It will also allow others to challenge decisions if they are part of the process. Finally, it’s much easier to prioritise work if you know the problem you’re trying to solve. This is why it’s so important to ensure that you have an aligned vision, roadmap and backlog in place.