产品待办事项是根据产品路线图及其要求为开发团队列出的优先工作列表。最重要的项目显示在产品待办事项的顶部，以便团队知道首先要交付什么。开发团队不会按照产品负责人的节奏处理待办事项列表，产品负责人也不会将工作推给开发团队。相反，开发团队会在有能力的情况从产品待办事项中抽取工作，可以是持续抽取（看板），也可以是迭代抽取 (Scrum)。

A well-managed product backlog can bring numerous benefits to a development team. Some of the key benefits include:

• Improved prioritization: A product backlog helps to ensure that the most critical tasks are being worked on first.

• Increased efficiency: By prioritizing tasks based on customer feedback and business objectives, teams can ensure they work on the most valuable tasks.

• Better communication: A product backlog ensures everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals.

• Reduced waste: By prioritizing tasks based on customer feedback and business objectives, teams can reduce waste and ensure that they are not working on tasks that are not valuable.

• Improved customer satisfaction: By prioritizing tasks based on customer feedback, teams can ensure they deliver customers' desired features and functionality.

Overall, a well-managed product backlog is essential for agile product development. It ensures that teams are working on the most valuable tasks and that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals.

A team's roadmap and requirements provide the foundation for the product backlog. Roadmap initiatives break down into several epics, and each epic will have several requirements and user stories. Let's take a look at the roadmap for a ficticious product called Teams in Space.

Since the Teams in Space website is the first initiative in the roadmap, we'll want to break down that initiative into epics (shown here in green, blue, and teal) and user stories for each of those epics.

The product owner then organizes each of the user stories into a single list for the development team. The product owner may choose to deliver a complete epic first (left). Or, it may be more important to the program to test booking a discounted flight which requires stories from several epics (right). See both examples below.

What may influence a product owner's prioritization?

• Customer priority

• Urgency of getting feedback

• Relative implementation difficulty

• Symbiotic relationships between work items (e.g. B is easier if we do A first)

Effective product backlog prioritization ensures that the most critical tasks are addressed first, balancing team autonomy with the product owner's demands.While the product owner is tasked with prioritizing the backlog, it's not done in a vacuum. Effective product owners seek input and feedback from customers, designers, and the development team to optimize everyone's workload and the product delivery.

Creating a product backlog is a crucial step in agile product development. It involves building a product roadmap, listing product backlog items, and communicating with the team.

Building a product roadmap

A product roadmap is a high-level plan outlining the product’s vision, goals, and objectives. It serves as the foundation for the product backlog and helps ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals. To build a product roadmap, define the product’s vision and mission. Then, identify the key objectives and goals that need to be achieved. Finally, break down the objectives into smaller, manageable tasks that can be added to the product backlog.

Listing product backlog items

Once the product roadmap is in place, it’s time to start listing product backlog items. These items can include features, user stories, bugs, design changes, and technical debt. When listing product backlog items, include a clear description of each item and any relevant details, such as estimated time and resources required. It’s also essential to prioritize the items based on customer feedback, requests, and business objectives. This ensures the development team works on tasks that deliver the most value.

Communicating with the team

Effective communication is critical when creating a product backlog. The product owner should work closely with the development team to ensure everyone understands the product backlog and the priorities. The product owner should also communicate with other teams, such as sales and marketing, to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals. Regular meetings and updates ensure everyone is on the same page and that the product backlog is effectively managed.Still need guidance? Check out the free product backlog template from Jira.

Backlog prioritization is essential for ensuring the development team focuses on tasks that deliver maximum impact. Here’s how to approach it:Various backlog prioritization techniques, such as MoSCoW and weighted scoring, can help teams manage and order tasks effectively. The prioritization process involves regularly revising and realigning goals to adapt to a dynamic business environment.

Step 1. Evaluate customer needs

• Identify features or fixes that will have the highest value for your users.

• Use customer feedback, surveys, or analytics to pinpoint priorities.

Step 2. Assess urgency for feedback

• Prioritize items that will generate actionable insights for the team or stakeholders.

• For example, testing a new feature early can save time and resources later.

Step 3. Consider implementation complexity

• Balance your backlog by including quick wins and more complex, long-term projects.

• Weigh the effort-to-impact ratio to ensure resources are spent wisely.

Step 4. Account for dependencies

• Identify tasks that must be completed before others can proceed.

• Streamline workflows by handling foundational work first.

Reliable tools that support backlog prioritization can streamline product development and enhance efficiency. While the product owner leads prioritization, involving the development team, designers, and stakeholders fosters a shared understanding of priorities. Regular discussions ensure alignment and improve decision-making.

Pro tip: Use prioritization frameworks like MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won’t-have) or weighted scoring to make objective, data-driven decisions. Teams can implement their own unique prioritization frameworks using the flexible prioritization feature in Jira Product Discovery.

建立产品待办事项后，重要的是要定期维护以跟上计划的节奏。产品负责人应在每次迭代规划会议之前审核待办事项列表，以确保优先级正确和纳入上次迭代的反馈。定期审核待办事项列表在敏捷圈中通常被称为“待办事项列表梳理”（有些人也使用待办事项列表优化一词）。

待办事项增加后，产品负责人需要将待办事项分为短期和长期项目。短期项目需要全面完善，然后才能归类为短期。这意味着已经起草了完整的用户故事，整理了与设计和开发的协作，并对开发进行了估算。长期项目可能仍然有些模糊，最好从开发团队那里得到一个粗略的估算，这样有助于确定优先级。这里的关键词是“粗略”：一旦团队完全了解并开始研究这些长期项目，估算就会发生变化。

待办事项列表充当产品负责人和开发团队之间的联系纽带。产品负责人可以根据客户反馈、精确估算和新要求随时重新确定待办事项列表中工作的优先级。但是，一旦工作开始进行，请尽量减少更改，因为更改会打扰开发团队并影响注意力、流程和士气。

Savvy product owners rigorously groom their program’s product backlog to create a reliable and sharable outline of the project's work items.

Stakeholders will challenge priorities, and that’s good. Fostering discussion around what’s important gets everyone’s priorities in sync. These discussions foster a culture of group prioritization, ensuring everyone shares the same mindset about the program.

A well-prioritized agile backlog clarifies what the team intends to spend time on, highlighting visible and internal tasks. The product backlog also serves as the foundation for iteration planning. All work items should be included in the backlog: user stories, bugs, design changes, technical debt, customer requests, action items from the retrospective, etc. This ensures everyone’s work items are included in the overall discussion for each iteration. Team members can then make trade-offs with the product owner before starting an iteration with complete knowledge of everything that needs to be done.

Pro tip: Product owners dictate the priority of work items in the backlog, while the development team dictates its velocity. This can be a tenuous relationship for new product owners who want to “push” work to the team. This article explains work-in-progress limits and flow.

Related resources

• Project Management Resources

  • Project Initiation Resources