Scrum Foundations Course – Product Backlog

Product Backlog

The Product Backlog is the Scrum Artifact that answers the question: “What is most important to build next?”

The primary problem of economics, applied to product and service development, is that stakeholders have seemingly unlimited wants, but organizations have limited means. Given that problem, we need to decide what order a Scrum Team or group of Scrum Teams will address stakeholder desires.

The Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product. It makes priorities transparent to all stakeholders.

The Product Owner is the Scrum Team member responsible for the Product Backlog, including what goes in it, what order it is in, and ensuring that it is always available to stakeholders and the team.

To provide transparency and to aid the Product Owner in ordering, Product Backlog items have a description, an estimate, and value.

A Product Backlog is a constantly evolving artifact. Several sources of information can change our understanding of what should be built next, including, but not limited to: feedback on a completed product Increment at a Sprint Review meeting; feedback and ideas from current and potential users and customers; ideas from internal stakeholders, including the Development Team; and emerging competitive and technical opportunities.

Multiple Scrum Teams often work together on the same product. One Product Backlog is still used to describe the upcoming work on the product. A Product Backlog attribute that group’s items may then be employed.

With the dynamic nature of product development, the Product Backlog is constantly being updated and refined. This is a Scrum Team activity, led by the Product Owner. Product Backlog refinement will
be described in more detail in another video.