Backlog Prioritization

Almost all of us will have many things/tasks to do, so how are we getting them completed?

We must be following some order or rank and we take up open tasks in that order. This will be all fine if we have infinite time until eternity. In most of the cases, we will have limited time. Then, how do we decide which tasks must be completed and which of those can be ignored and which of those can be taken up later? Needless to say, having a prioritized backlog list is one of the most important part for any product development lifecycle.

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First principle of Agile is, "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software."

?So, for any product, in simple terms, what customer values the most, automatically takes precedence over others.?

Before we move into more functional details on backlog prioritization. Let us take a simple scenario.

• I wake up every day at 6:30am
• I brush my teeth.
• Finish my regular nature calls.
• Read News.
• I wake up my little daughter and spend few minutes with her.
• Take bath.
• I pray to God.
• I eat breakfast.
• … few more tasks
• I start my office work at 9:30am

This is the routine. Suppose on a particular instance I wake up 30 mins late. And I had an important meeting at 9:30am which I cannot miss. Now, as there was no scope to add 30 mins more, I had to miss some of the regular routines and re prioritize my TODOs for that day. I am sure most you have experienced such situations in your regular day to day life. And in many cases, we just prioritize the todos in almost no time. Even when we have to adapt on a particular day. The main factor that is in work subconsciously, is the cost of delay/cost of missing that todo task for that specific day.

If you only Quantify one thing, quantify the Cost of Delay?

?—Don Reinertsen

Let us go back to product backlog prioritization and the various techniques that can be used. For a successful product, having prioritized backlog is as important as having the priorities in sync with stakeholders. This will ensure that the product is well received.?

4-level prioritization

This is one of the most common and trivial process that is widely followed. Each of the backlog item is tagged or prioritized into one of the four categories.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Very High

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There is no further explanation needed for this method. Very simple and straight forward method. But, when there are multiple Highs and Very highs, how do we process the backlog will be an open question and is not that transparent and scientific.

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A similar approach MoSCoW, can also be used.

• M - must have
• S - should have
• C - could have
• W - would be nice to have

In principle, this approach is more or less the same. But the categorization is more descriptive and quickly understood.

?Another similar approach is called KANO.

Each backlog item or user story is categorized into one of the four groups.

• Delighters
• Satisfiers
• Dissatisfiers
• In different features

These are some of the qualitative approaches to prioritization.

Let us also check some Quantitative approaches.

The first simple technique is 100$ prioritization/allocation technique.

Here, there will be a fixed amount say 100$ that is available and we have to allocate money to each of the open backlog item/user story. At the end of the process, all of the 100 $ must be allocated to user stories and nothing should be left behind. The allocation ofcourse happens based on the perceived value of each story by the stakeholders.

Another popular approach is, impact/effort matrix or prioritization matrix or value/cost ratio method.

We can even have this as a more visual plot.

One may ask, all these are fine. But how do we get started. How do we assign a value(especially cost) or allocate some money (in 100$ technique) for the first item. The key is to take the smallest item and assign a value. Then other items are assigned values relative to this item. Relative prioritization is the key.

?Another more detailed approach is Weighted Shorted Job First (WSJF).

In this approach backlogs are prioritized based on the relative cost of delay and the job size. It uses the following parameters.

• Business value | relative value of this feature/story to the customer/business.
• Time criticality | will customers wait for this feature or move to another solution?
• Risk reduction or opportunity enablement value | can this can feature open up new opportunities or can this feature reduce the risk?
• Job duration | effort.

Cost of delay = (Business value + time criticality + risk reduction or opportunity enablement value).

Priority or WSJF = (Cost of delay) / Job Duration.

Acknowledgement:

1. https://productleadership.com
2. https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
3. https://www.scaledagileframework.com/wsjf/