What's in your backlog?

February 20, 2008 by cspag

This morning I was looking over several of our project backlogs and noticed something that really caught my attention. In addition to user stories that addressed the functionality we are developing, our project teams have been adding stories to the backlog that have nothing to do with project tasks (or maybe they have everything to do with project tasks). The stories are about improving processes and practices, organizational issues, team matters, and even the project structure.

I was really happy to see this. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that our project teams are becoming mature agile practitioners. They've realized that the issues uncovered in their retrospectives are important enough to warrant being put into a backlog. This ensures that they won't be ignored or forgotten about when the retrospective is over. It puts the issues front and center and on par with development tasks. And, it makes sure that we are actually going to do something about them within a time-boxed period.

So, what's in your backlog? Is your backlog filled with only development tasks or does it include stories about improving your team and your practices? Take a look today and consider if you need to elevate these non-development stories to a higher level.

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