Backlog prioritization is a key element of agile product growth. Nevertheless, it might get overwhelming when there are a number of stakeholders: All of them make requests impartial of each other and asynchronously, whereas the product supervisor spends lengthy hours in one-on-one conferences, negotiating with them over what objects will make it into the subsequent dash. The result’s usually wasted time and sources.
To bridge this division and save time, the most effective resolution is a prioritization workshop that allows 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 Drawback
Let’s think about a standard 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. Nevertheless, 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 potential 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 shoppers they represented. Though stakeholders had been conscious that the event staff pulled objects from the backlog solely once they turned out there, stakeholders nonetheless felt deserted and ignored. Lead time was excessive for any request that was not an emergency, and firefighting was all too widespread. On prime of that, stakeholders’ requests recurrently had been in battle.
Stakeholders had been sad and felt like their requests principally went right into a black gap. Their prospects had been pissed off with how lengthy it took to handle easy bug reviews 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 quicker cycle and lead time to maintain up with stakeholder and person wants. The event staff wanted route about the place to focus its vitality, the way to steadiness tech debt towards new requests, and the way 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 achieve 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 objects 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 info and leaves with a standard understanding of what the event staff will ship subsequent
- Giving stakeholders a discussion board the place they’ll converse and be heard
Offering stakeholders with a structured, facilitated discussion board through which they’ll categorical their wants and align with each other empowers them and provides them a greater understanding of the whole lot of what goes into constructing an important product. In my very own work, I discovered that my stakeholders had been much more prone to notify me of a request, present particulars, and reply my questions after I hosted a number of product backlog prioritization workshops.
Learn how to Run a Workshop
The workshop’s potential to attain its goals is closely influenced by who’s within the room. Ensure you invite all related specialists:
- Key stakeholders of the product: account managers, account director, customer support supervisor, and so forth.
- Product supervisor (or product proprietor)
- Scrum grasp
- Material specialists
Remember to ship out an in depth agenda forward of time explaining what shall be mentioned and when. This can present the stakeholders with a chance to ask questions or make solutions beforehand and hold everybody targeted through the assembly.
Learn how to Put together the Room
Earlier than the members arrive, put together the assembly room in order that members can dive proper into the workshop workouts. First, you’ll have to current the product backlog objects on the wall—print out the backlog objects or write them down on index playing cards.
These playing cards signify the options and enhancements that your staff plans to implement within the close to future. Tape them on the assembly room’s wall and prepare 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.
Roles of Members
The product supervisor is the primary 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 choice, a product supervisor can nonetheless transfer backlog objects 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 collect info to make future precedence selections.
If a scrum grasp attends the workshop, ask them to notice members’ suggestions on the train itself while you’re facilitating the occasion—it is going to be useful for future enhancements. Material specialists take part within the workshop to supply context and extra info for stakeholders.
Learn how to Facilitate Prioritization
Prioritization might be dealt with in two phases.
Within the first prioritizing stage, encourage the members to resolve what objects will not be important. Placing the low-priority objects apart will permit the group to spend its useful time on higher-priority objects. If there’s nonetheless no consensus, a product supervisor ought to counsel setting the merchandise apart for a extra in-depth dialogue.
Throughout the second prioritizing stage, an important technique for serving to individuals attain an settlement is to make the most of the Effort Impression Matrix—a easy but highly effective device for facilitating a bunch dialog that clarifies priorities. Objects that require the bottom effort for the best affect rise to the highest of the checklist, and objects that require higher effort however could have a decrease affect sink to the underside. You will discover a number of variations of this method and the way to enhance it.
If stakeholders hold 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 verify in with the members and ask for his or her closing ideas. After they depart, be certain to quantity or code the agreed-upon requests with the intention to simply switch them to the product administration product backlog device—begin with one as the best precedence.
Repeatedly Enhance the Workshop
The product backlog workshop must be an everyday assembly in your Scrum cycle, and it might match right into a Kanban staff’s ceremonies. Should you 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 may very well be carried out weekly or in no matter cadence is greatest to realign a roadmap to prioritize the Kanban checklist.
For my staff, having a prioritization workshop each three weeks was enough to refresh the backlog’s priorities. Discovering the correct cadence is important for the workshop’s success—ensure you discover the nice line between members’ wants and precise demand. Test in recurrently with members about whether or not the present frequency meets their wants.
Additionally, create a channel for members to supply suggestions on the workshop. Having a devoted particular person to take notes about future enhancements to the workshop is useful—a scrum grasp can fill this position completely. Doc the workshop’s enhancements to point out your dedication to reaching a smoother expertise.
Often using a devoted workshop for backlog prioritization can profit an organization on a number of totally different ranges. Product managers can use their time and sources extra successfully and effectively. The corporate might be extra agile and obtain higher outcomes quicker. Asking stakeholders to take part early on might be an extremely highly effective device to achieve their assist for product initiatives and get useful suggestions. Executives might additionally use this workshop to guage priorities on a tactical and strategic degree 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 objects within the upcoming dash(s), whereas the product backlog is a long-term grasp checklist 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 can be used to set the expectations of product stakeholders.
The product supervisor is accountable for creating, prioritizing, and sustaining a product backlog. Requests for backlog objects come from varied sources: gross sales, the QA staff, buyer assist, and product stakeholders.
A product supervisor prioritizes the backlog and defines product route. There are numerous sources for backlog requests, however usually, they arrive from product stakeholders. Product managers should discover a consensus amongst stakeholders with generally conflicting requests, and a backlog prioritization workshop is the easiest way to do it.
A superb product backlog is a well-prioritized plan that converts a high-level imaginative and prescient into the working particulars of making a product.
