Prioritizing Product Backlogs: A Strategic Guide for Product Managers
This article is designed to help product managers effectively prioritize their backlogs. By understanding the company's revenue model, product organization vision, and goals, and by using a structured approach, product managers can ensure that their efforts align with the overarching strategy. This guide provides a comprehensive framework for determining the priority of project elements within a backlog.
Understanding the Company and Its Vision
The first step in prioritizing product backlogs is to have a clear understanding of the company's revenue model and product organization (product org) vision and goals. It is essential to know how the company makes money, as this knowledge will provide context for the decisions that follow. Additionally, it is crucial to comprehend the product org vision and goals, which should serve as the guiding light for all product management activities. Understanding how team goals contribute to these higher-level goals is equally important.
Applying the Lens to Backlog Items
Once you have a solid grasp of the company’s revenue model and product org vision, you can begin prioritizing your backlog items. Start by categorizing backlog items as epics, user stories, or tasks. When prioritizing between projects, ask yourself, “Is this absolutely necessary to hit our goals?” This question helps you focus on the most critical projects that contribute to the overall strategy. When prioritizing within projects, ask, “Is this absolutely necessary to solve the customer problem?” This ensures that every effort is directed towards addressing the customer's needs effectively.
Ranking Items Based on Strategy
Ranking backlog items involves considering various dimensions such as expected return value, total cost of ownership, cost of delivery, cost of maintenance, initial return value, and lifetime return value. The absence of a strategy is not a hindrance; in fact, it provides an opportunity to develop one. The strategy might revolve around experimenting with multiple features to identify the ones that stick, in which case the cost of delivery and opportunity cost/gating will drive your decisions. Alternatively, you might focus on preparing customers for a killer feature set for the future, making time more critical than money. Your strategy should guide your prioritization decisions.
Developing a Strategy: If no strategy exists, you should develop one. This strategy will serve as the bedrock for your decision-making process. Begin by identifying the key dimensions that are important for your product and stakeholders. Once you have identified these dimensions, you can start categorizing your backlog items accordingly. Incremental Strategy: Another strategy could be to incrementally approach the desired user behavior and prepare the market for a future release. This might involve focusing on immediate value returns while considering the long-term impact of your decisions. Experiential Strategy: Experiment with various features to see which ones resonate best with the market. In this case, the cost of delivery and opportunity cost/gating will be your primary considerations.Conclusion
Prioritizing product backlogs is a strategic and iterative process. By understanding your company's revenue model, product org vision, and goals, and by using a structured approach, you can align your efforts with the overarching strategy. This article provides a framework for prioritization that balances immediate and long-term considerations. Remember, strategy is not just about the order in which items are prioritized; it is about making informed decisions that align with your company's objectives.