Product Backlog
Product Backlog is the single list (or inventory) of all prioritized product backlog items. Product Backlog Item are the customer centric features.
Product Backlog list can have features of various categories like business, technical, infra, UX, database, bugs, technical documentation work, transition/training jobs and all other type of functional and nonfunctional requirements.
Product backlog items have priority order like 1, 2, 3, … and n for each of customer-centric features.
These Product backlog items to be realized during product releases and help guide road-map planning for product.
Usually a team creates a Product Backlog before the first Sprint can begin. Product Owner share the initials requirements and the team start collaborating to Product Owner (who is primary source of requirements) for Product Backlog creations.
Picture of a Product backlog –
A good Product Backlog should have below properties –
· Central List of all customer centric features
· Order of each Item is Prioritized by business value
· Unambiguous so anyone can understand the business feature
· Initial Size Estimated for each item
· Estimation updated each sprint to more realistic release planning
· Polished (Refined or Groomed) so team can work each on few of them in a sprint.
Note –
Features are less formally considered as requirements by many teams, while all other Product Backlog Items are non-feature items.
Functionality is also a common used term for Product Backlog Item, and other product backlog items can also be categorized like Non Functional Requirement.
Source and Further readings –
· Scrum Primer by Criag Larman at http://scrumprimer.com/
· Scrum Guide by Jeff and Ken at https://www.scrum.org/scrum-guide
· Product Backlog By Mike Cohn at http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/product-backlog
· Core Scrum page of Scrum Alliance at http://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/core-scrum-artifacts-activities
· Agile Atlas of Scrum Alliance at http://agileatlas.org/atlas/scrum
Attached : a simplest form of Product Backlog template.
