How fresh is your backlog?

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly

Do you struggle with an overwhelming backlog?

Do you count the number of product backlog items in your backlog in tens? hundred? or thousands?

Does your backlog contain many stories which have been there for months, if not years, and yet never raise to the top of the backlog?

Is your success judged on your ability to do the backlog?

Backlogs were a good idea when they were introduced a bit over 20 years ago but today many teams slaves to the backlog – see my posts on the Tyranny of the backlog and Purpose over backlog. One of the benefits I’ve called out for OKRs is the ability to move away from backlog driven development (BLDD).

In Succeeding with OKRs in Agile I ask suggest you either need to prioritise your backlog over OKRs (in which case OKRs are derived from the backlog you intend to do) or OKRs over backlog (in which case OKRs are derived from strategy and the backlog plays a supporting role.) In my podcast with Jenny Herald earlier this year I even say “Let OKRs drive… nuke the backlog.”

Filipe Albero Pomar recently shared his backlog freshness blog which I think is great. Freshness is a great way to think about the state of the backlog that separates the size of the backlog from the relevance of the backlog.

Filipe’s idea is simply to talk about the backlog in terms of freshness – you have a fresh backlog if your backlog items are fresh: written recently, relate to current opportunities, problems and things people currently want.

And of course, the opposite of fresh: stale, stories that have been sitting in the backlog for months, even years, stories that relate to yesterday’s problems and project, stories which people wanted last year. The existence a big backlog of stale stories means the team is seen to be not delivering, the end-date is far off because people still expect all the work to be done.

Filipe suggests backlog freshness can be measured:

1. Set a cut-off date

2. Categorise stories as fresh or stale: fresh stories have been written since the cut-off date, those which are older are stale

3. Calculate freshness as a percentage of fresh from the total: if 25 stories out of 60 have been written in the last month then the backlog is 41% fresh, and 59% stale

Thats a useful metric, I think we can do better, look at the graphic above. I group backlog items into age groups and graphed them. For completeness I added a line to indicate average story age. Clearly this backlog is not fresh – nearly half the stories are over a year old.

I like the idea of graphing backlog freshness because it is easy to understand and makes an impact. In the graph above I’ve categorised backlog items into age groups and added an average line. Clearly this is not a fresh backlog. Whether this is the way to demonstrate backlog freshness I’m not sure – I’m playing with a histogram and quartile ranges.

With some clients I’ve thought of the backlog like a mortgage. There is the principle (the existing backlog), the interest rate (the growth rate of the backlog) and the monthly repayments (stories reaching done). Unfortunately when you do this you sometimes find the mortgage will not be paid for many years, and perhaps never. (Don’t worry about estimating the size of stories, for this sort of analysis the number of stories will get you started, and if your backlog is measured in hundreds of items the small will offset the large.)

I’d love to talk more about this and experiment with some ideas, I think it could be a very useful way of thinking about the backlog.


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User Stories by Example: certifcate added to the free courses

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly

A couple of months ago I made my online User Stories by Example tutorial series free. One client suggested that the series would benefit from a certificate at the end. Good idea, I’m always open to suggestions.

So, I’ve added a new tutorial to the series: exam and certificate – rather than just give a certificate of attendance to anyone who plays the videos I’ve set a little test. There is a bank of questions which are randomly selected and should cover the five areas of the tutorials. Score over 60% on the test and you get a certificate which lists the key topics covered.

I’ve set a small fee for this, once you have paid you have 21 days to do the exam and you can sit the exam as many times as you like.

As always, if you have any suggestions or other feedback please let me know. And if you have any ideas for new questions send them over, I’d love to increase the question pool.


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User Stories by Example tutorials now Free

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly

My User Stories by Example tutorial series is now free.

There are five tutorials which include video lectures, worked examples with on real user stories and exercises covering user stories basics, acceptance criteria, story splitting, story refactoring and more.

The series is based on my Little Book of Requirements and User Stories – the audio files for the book are there too but you will have to pay for them. If you are an Audible subscriber you can get the book there as part of you subscription. Print book, eBook and audio book are all available at Amazon.


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Online User Stories tutorials now complete

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly, Software Strategy

Better User Stories
As a Product Owner I want to write better stories

I’m pleased to announce I’ve released the last of my online User Stories tutorials (part 5: Workflow and Lifecycle) and with that the whole series is complete. You can now buy the entire User Stories set of 5 tutorials as one package at a 40% discount to buying the tutorials individually.

The package includes over six hours of video commentary, exercises, quizzes, downloads and both ebook and audio book versions of Little Book of Requirements and User Stories.

Blog readers can get a further 25% off the price with the code: “blogoct21” until the end of this month, October 2021.

In addition, the first 3 people to use that code will receive a free print copy of The Art of Agile Product Ownership.

The 5 tutorials are:

These tutorials turned ouit to be a lot more work than I expected (where have i heard that before?). The core material is based on the Requirements, Backlogs and User Stories workshop that I have been running for a few years and last year converted to a series of online webinars. In the process the material has become a lot more focused.

Please, let me know what you think, in the comments section below or in the feedback forms at the end of each tutorial in the series.

The post Online User Stories tutorials now complete appeared first on Allan Kelly, Software Strategy.

Online User Stories tutorials now complete

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly

Better User Stories
As a Product Owner I want to write better stories

I’m pleased to announce I’ve released the last of my online User Stories tutorials (part 5: Workflow and Lifecycle) and with that the whole series is complete. You can now buy the entire User Stories set of 5 tutorials as one package at a 40% discount to buying the tutorials individually.

The package includes over six hours of video commentary, exercises, quizzes, downloads and both ebook and audio book versions of Little Book of Requirements and User Stories.

Blog readers can get a further 25% off the price with the code: “blogoct21” until the end of this month, October 2021.

In addition, the first 3 people to use that code will receive a free print copy of The Art of Agile Product Ownership.

The 5 tutorials are:

These tutorials turned ouit to be a lot more work than I expected (where have i heard that before?). The core material is based on the Requirements, Backlogs and User Stories workshop that I have been running for a few years and last year converted to a series of online webinars. In the process the material has become a lot more focused.

Please, let me know what you think, in the comments section below or in the feedback forms at the end of each tutorial in the series.

The post Online User Stories tutorials now complete appeared first on Allan Kelly.

Splitting & slicing user stories

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly Associates

I’m please to announce the fourth part of my User Stories tutorial is now available.

User Stories by example, part 4: Splitting stories

In this tutorial I look at 10 days to split a story and illustrate each with examples and exercises.

I have one more part of this tutorial series to deliver, Workflow and Lifecycle, hopefully I’ll have that out in the next month.

Until then please try the tutorial and let me know what you think.

The post Splitting & slicing user stories appeared first on Allan Kelly Associates.

Splitting & slicing user stories

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly

I’m please to announce the fourth part of my User Stories tutorial is now available.

User Stories by example, part 4: Splitting stories

In this tutorial I look at 10 days to split a story and illustrate each with examples and exercises.

I have one more part of this tutorial series to deliver, Workflow and Lifecycle, hopefully I’ll have that out in the next month.

Until then please try the tutorial and let me know what you think.

The post Splitting & slicing user stories appeared first on Allan Kelly.