Starting with Scrum 2: The Birth of the Backlog

How do we go from Product Vision to backlog?

this article was originally published at goretro.

This is the second article in the ‘Starting with Scrum’ series. Have a look at this cover article for an overview of the series.

In this article, we look at how we go from the Product Vision to a working backlog.

The Product Backlog

With a clear Product Goal, the next step is to make it accessible and visible to everyone. We do this by creating a Product Backlog. The Product Backlog is very practically defined as:

An emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the product. It is the single source of work undertaken by the Scrum Team.
– Scrum Guide

But what I find much more interesting in the context of this article is how the Product Backlog can be seen as the deliverable (artifact) that demonstrates a commitment to the Product Goal:

The Product Goal describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against. The Product Goal is in the Product Backlog. The rest of the Product Backlog emerges to define “what” will fulfill the Product Goal.
– Scrum Guide

In our case, having just had the Product Goal workshop, this is where the fun begins because the items that ended up on the whiteboard during the workshop are more or less our main “epics”! Who…