How to Create a DEEP Product Backlog
The team at Luna has been constantly iterating on their Top Secret Device.
It’s a complicated process their product owner, Rikard, simplifies through real-time backlog management. When change happens — whether feedback from customers, sales teams, executives, or other stakeholders, he’s able to adapt quickly.
With Hansoft’s dedicated product backlog, Rikard has one place to plan, organize, refine, and collaborate on future improvements. He can quickly create, structure, prioritize, and manage the backlog — so the teams deliver the most valuable work possible.
Now let’s look at how you can build and manage the product backlog in Hansoft.
Go to the Product Backlog View
Click “Product Backlog” in the top-left navigation bar to go to Hansoft’s dedicated view.
POWER TIP! Cmd/Ctrl + D = Product backlog shortcut
Creating a Product Backlog Item
- To create a new item, click “New backlog item” in the navigation bar.
- You can also use the “cmd + n” shortcut.
- Double-click the item to name it.
- Repeat as necessary.
Structuring Your Product Backlog
Structure your backlog any way you want, and change whenever you want.
- Structure by feature, team, release, it’s up to you.
- Break backlog items down and organize as you see fit.
- Outdent by clicking “Break down” in the top navigation bar or by pressing tab to indent or shift + tab to outdent.
POWER TIP! Shift = Indent, Shift + tab = Outdent, Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N to break down!
Grooming Your Backlog
Hansoft makes it easy to conduct backlog grooming using the best practices of a DEEP backlog. A DEEP backlog is Detailed, Estimated, Emergent, and Prioritized.
Adding Detail
- Quickly breakdown items to the level of detail you need, from coarse to granular.
- Add user stories to the dedicated section.
- Add links, and drag and drop attachments, as necessary.
Estimating
Hansoft comes ready to estimate using common measurements (points, days, or hours). You can also easily estimate using any custom method.
- Double-click on the “Estimated days” to add or edit estimates.
- Save time, and batch estimations, by selecting a group and editing at the bottom your screen.
- All your estimates aggregate up to the parent item, so you have a good idea of overall size.
Staying Emergent
With Hansoft, you can keep your backlog updated easily with input from stakeholders, such as customers, sales and marketing teams, or executives.
- Just create wish lists or idea buckets in your backlog.
- Delegate them by right-clicking on the item, selecting “Delegate to…”, and selecting their name.
- Now they can update this section of the backlog for you.
- Delegating is a simple way to decentralize decision making and collaborate across many product owners or area experts.
Prioritizing
What should you deliver next? With Hansoft, you and the team will always have a clear picture of what to be working on.
- To prioritize items, double-click on the “Product backlog priority” column. Batch edit by selecting more than one item and editing at the bottom of the screen.
- You can use any prioritization method you want. MoSCoW, Kano, it’s up to you.
- With the Priority view, you can drag and drop items, and control the unique ranking number of each item.
Commit to Sprint
The next step? Deliver your backlog items when there’s capacity. To make this easy, the Hansoft backlog is placed in a separate window.
- Simply, drag and drop items from the product backlog to the planning view – either into a sprint or a schedule.
- Now the sprint team can break it down further into tasks. Every change they make will aggregate up to the backlog, so that you, the product owner, can focus on the big picture.
Great backlog management is critical to successful product development. With Hansoft, you have a fast, easy backlog management tool that can be customized to your way of working. Whether Scrum, Kanban or even if you prefer creating a more traditional plan. Learn more about using Hansoft. Visit Perforce.com for Hansoft documentation & other resources.