Backlog prioritization is a key element of agile product growth. Nonetheless, it might probably get overwhelming when there are a number of stakeholders: All of them make requests unbiased of each other and asynchronously, whereas the product supervisor spends lengthy hours in one-on-one conferences, negotiating with them over what gadgets will make it into the following dash. The result’s typically wasted time and assets.
To bridge this division and save time, the most effective answer is a prioritization workshop that permits them to return to a consensus on the relative precedence of their requests. On this intensive session, all of the stakeholders can work collectively to agree on a plan that charts the trail ahead.
The Downside
Let’s take into account a typical situation. An organization’s product staff discovered itself in a problematic scenario with the corporate’s flagship product. The event staff and the architects had set a difficult purpose to maneuver the product to a cloud-based platform. Nonetheless, progress was very sluggish as a result of builders had been busy with product characteristic enhancements and bug fixes. There was a substantial amount of technical debt to pay down, which stifled the staff’s means to make enhancements and proceed with their deliberate sprints. On the identical time, the stakeholders, who had been all account managers and labored immediately with finish customers, continued to request characteristic enhancements to fulfill the purchasers they represented. Though stakeholders had been conscious that the event staff pulled gadgets from the backlog solely after they grew to become accessible, stakeholders nonetheless felt deserted and ignored. Lead time was excessive for any request that was not an emergency, and firefighting was all too frequent. On high of that, stakeholders’ requests usually had been in battle.
Stakeholders had been sad and felt like their requests principally went right into a black gap. Their clients had been annoyed with how lengthy it took to deal with easy bug stories and for his or her requested enhancements to be delivered. Because of this, the event staff felt prefer it was being pulled in lots of instructions and easily couldn’t make the technical enhancements to allow a sooner cycle and lead time to maintain up with stakeholder and person wants. The event staff wanted course about the place to focus its vitality, find out how to steadiness tech debt towards new requests, and find out how to prioritize the work.
The product proprietor determined to place everybody in a single room and see what occurred.
Promoting the Workshop to Stakeholders
Step one is to realize buy-in from the stakeholders. On this case, the product proprietor approached the stakeholders’ supervisor and defined the advantages of the proposed workshop. He communicated that the purpose was to prioritize the backlog gadgets in an order that every one stakeholders might agree upon. These had been the promoting factors:
- Saving time
- Driving collaboration
- Aligning communication so that everybody hears the identical data and leaves with a typical understanding of what the event staff will ship subsequent
- Giving stakeholders a discussion board the place they will converse and be heard
Offering stakeholders with a structured, facilitated discussion board through which they will categorical their wants and align with each other empowers them and offers them a greater understanding of the whole thing of what goes into constructing an awesome product. In my very own work, I discovered that my stakeholders had been way more prone to notify me of a request, present particulars, and reply my questions after I hosted a number of product backlog prioritization workshops.
How one can Run a Workshop
The workshop’s means to realize its aims is closely influenced by who’s within the room. Be sure to invite all related consultants:
- Key stakeholders of the product: account managers, account director, customer support supervisor, and many others.
- Product supervisor (or product proprietor)
- Scrum grasp
- Subject material consultants
Remember to ship out an in depth agenda forward of time explaining what shall be mentioned and when. This may present the stakeholders with a possibility to ask questions or make options beforehand and preserve everybody centered throughout the assembly.
How one can Put together the Room
Earlier than the contributors arrive, put together the assembly room in order that contributors can dive proper into the workshop workouts. First, you’ll have to current the product backlog gadgets on the wall—print out the backlog gadgets or write them down on index playing cards.
These playing cards symbolize the options and enhancements that your staff plans to implement within the close to future. Tape them on the assembly room’s wall and organize them within the present backlog order—from highest precedence at one finish to the bottom precedence on the different. Be ready to show extra detailed request descriptions and extra particulars on the projector or TV display screen.
Roles of Contributors
The product supervisor is the principle facilitator for the workouts, monitoring the time and guiding prioritization by offering context from the product imaginative and prescient. Product managers ought to keep away from getting concerned within the discussions and let the stakeholders drive the priority-setting. After the stakeholders agree upon a call, a product supervisor can nonetheless transfer backlog gadgets as wanted to accommodate different priorities that come up over time. Product managers retain their decision-making energy over the backlog, however this train helps them to assemble data to make future precedence choices.
If a scrum grasp attends the workshop, ask them to notice contributors’ suggestions on the train itself while you’re facilitating the occasion—it is going to be useful for future enhancements. Subject material consultants take part within the workshop to offer context and extra data for stakeholders.
How one can Facilitate Prioritization
Prioritization will be dealt with in two levels.
Within the first prioritizing stage, encourage the contributors to resolve what gadgets will not be important. Placing the low-priority gadgets apart will permit the group to spend its invaluable time on higher-priority gadgets. If there’s nonetheless no consensus, a product supervisor ought to counsel setting the merchandise apart for a extra in-depth dialogue.
Through the second prioritizing stage, an awesome technique for serving to folks attain an settlement is to make the most of the Effort Influence Matrix—a easy but highly effective instrument for facilitating a bunch dialog that clarifies priorities. Objects that require the bottom effort for the very best influence rise to the highest of the record, and gadgets that require higher effort however could have a decrease influence sink to the underside. You could find a number of variations of this system and find out how to enhance it.
If stakeholders preserve shifting a backlog merchandise backwards and forwards with no consensus, the product supervisor ought to have the ultimate say on its precedence.
Earlier than closing the assembly, the product supervisor ought to examine in with the contributors and ask for his or her remaining ideas. After they depart, make certain to quantity or code the agreed-upon requests with the intention to simply switch them to the product administration product backlog instrument—begin with one as the very best precedence.
Constantly Enhance the Workshop
The product backlog workshop must be a daily assembly in your Scrum cycle, and it might probably match right into a Kanban staff’s ceremonies. For those who can conduct this train mid-sprint in a Scrum cycle, you’ll obtain stakeholders’ priorities forward of dash planning. For a Kanban staff, the workshop could possibly be carried out weekly or in no matter cadence is finest to realign a roadmap to prioritize the Kanban record.
For my staff, having a prioritization workshop each three weeks was adequate to refresh the backlog’s priorities. Discovering the suitable cadence is important for the workshop’s success—be sure to discover the nice line between contributors’ wants and precise demand. Verify in usually with contributors about whether or not the present frequency meets their wants.
Additionally, create a channel for contributors to offer suggestions on the workshop. Having a devoted individual to take notes about future enhancements to the workshop is useful—a scrum grasp can fill this function completely. Doc the workshop’s enhancements to point out your dedication to reaching a smoother expertise.
Recurrently using a devoted workshop for backlog prioritization can profit an organization on a number of completely different ranges. Product managers can use their time and assets extra successfully and effectively. The corporate will be extra agile and obtain higher outcomes sooner. Asking stakeholders to take part early on will be an extremely highly effective instrument to realize their help for product initiatives and get invaluable suggestions. Executives might additionally use this workshop to judge priorities on a tactical and strategic stage with the intention to advance workers’ alignment with the corporate’s targets, staff processes, and total communication.
Understanding the fundamentals
The distinction between a product backlog and a dash backlog is the urgency of their implementation: The dash backlog is utilized by the Scrum staff to develop probably the most pressing gadgets within the upcoming dash(s), whereas the product backlog is a long-term grasp record of options, a few of which could by no means attain the implementation stage.
A product backlog is vital as a result of it lays out all of the product’s potential options in a single place so the event staff can see them; it will also be used to set the expectations of product stakeholders.
The product supervisor is liable for creating, prioritizing, and sustaining a product backlog. Requests for backlog gadgets come from numerous sources: gross sales, the QA staff, buyer help, and product stakeholders.
A product supervisor prioritizes the backlog and defines product course. There are numerous sources for backlog requests, however typically, they arrive from product stakeholders. Product managers must discover a consensus amongst stakeholders with typically conflicting requests, and a backlog prioritization workshop is one of the simplest ways to do it.
A great product backlog is a well-prioritized plan that converts a high-level imaginative and prescient into the working particulars of making a product.
