Guide
The ultimate guide to the product backlog
A well-prioritised backlog communicates everything the team intends to spend time on — including what the client never sees.
Beyond making releases and iterations easier to schedule, a well-prioritised agile backlog communicates everything the team intends to spend time on, including work the client will never see. That transparency is what lets engineers set expectations with stakeholders.
What belongs in it
Features, defects, technical work and knowledge-building items all belong in the same ordered list. Keeping technical debt in a separate invisible list is the most reliable way to never do it.
Ordering, not just grouping
A backlog is an ordered list, not a set of buckets. The top items are refined enough to be started; the bottom ones can stay coarse. Refining everything up front wastes the effort, because priorities will change before you get there.
From backlog to plan
At some point the backlog has to meet capacity and dates. FoxPlan connects the two: cards and tickets on the board, allocations and effort on the schedule, so the sequence of the backlog is checked against the resources that actually exist.
