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Product Management vocabulary · Agile Delivery

Backlog

Meaning in product management, with examples

/ˈbæklɔːɡ/nounCore term

In product management, backlog means: An ordered list of all the work a product team might do, such as features, improvements and bug fixes, with the most important items at the top.

In Turkish: iş listesi, ürün iş listesi, bekleyen işler listesi

How it is used

Kept in tools such as Jira, Linear or Azure DevOps. Items are added to, prioritized in and pulled from the backlog. A long backlog is normal; an unordered one is a problem. In Scrum it is called the product backlog, and the product owner is accountable for it.

Example sentences

  1. Good idea, but it's not urgent. Let's add it to the backlog.

  2. We have over 300 items in the backlog, and half of them are more than a year old.

Common collocations

  • product backlog
  • add to the backlog
  • prioritize the backlog
  • backlog item
  • clean up the backlog
  • backlog refinementRegular work in which the product owner and the team review upcoming backlog items, clarify them, split large ones and estimate them so they are ready for a sprint.
  • user storyA short description of a feature written from the user's point of view, usually in the form “As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [benefit].”
  • sprintA fixed, short period, usually one to four weeks, in which a team builds and finishes an agreed set of work before planning the next one.
  • prioritizeTo decide which work is most important and should be done first, and therefore which work will wait or will not be done at all.
  • product ownerIn Scrum, the person accountable for the product backlog: deciding its order, making items clear and making sure the team works on the most valuable things.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Agile Delivery

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