Backlogs should be sparse. Try to clear them out at regular intervals — at least once a year, ideally sooner. If a feature suggestion has been sitting in there for a long time and gets deleted, it will get re-added if it's important enough. Otherwise, you know that it was probably written in response to a particular situation. As a PM, you should be focusing your team on the long term, high value work.
Roadmaps have to exist for a variety of different stakeholders (and sometimes the same stakeholder needs to dive in), so you need to be able to roll up and unfurl your plan given the situation. So my advice here is to make sure that you've organized your tasks as much as possible upfront. Otherwise, you're in for a world of pain later when someone has a question about status.
@product_at_producthunt Thanks for sharing Michael. Gotta admit that our backlog can get dirty sometimes.
I do have a question for you if you don't mind: how long is your detailed roadmap? Not the high level vision stuff, but the roadmap that has lots of detail.
@between_team Since I'm still fairly new at PH, I'm not that far ahead yet here. In past lives when I'm using a two week sprint cycle, I like to be 2-4 weeks ahead of development. That means I'm honing upcoming tasks with design and giving myself some buffer so I can focus more on the strategic vision. It also means I'm not so far ahead that shifting priorities based on current development makes me feel bad that I've mapped out too much.
@product_at_producthunt Interesting, thanks for sharing Michael, we personally have a roadmap mapped out 1-2 months and it's a pain because of how much you have to change based on unforeseen variables.
@between_team For sure, that's why I'll have a lower fidelity roadmap for further out. I'm less precious about changing or deleting a few bullet points, rather than some fully fleshed out stories.
Online whiteboarding really helps. I perform my tasks really great on digital boards.
I can recommend my friends that launched today http://meow.ph/weje :D
@valeria_andreevna@erika_buiraI would also recommend the online whiteboard, but it is even better if it can be combined with more serious features, eg version management, etc ...
@valeria_andreevna@erika_buirai@klajko_dora Version management for backlogs? not sure. Back log is a kind of storage of ideas what would be good to have in future. Version management is more for the actual work on the projct
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@valeria_andreevna@erika_buirai@medik Yes, you are right. I was just thinking of online whiteboard tools that is more complex and usable already in the planning stage with visualization of different versions (MVP, etc..) of a product. I think it is a great solution in agile product management process. You can see for example StoriesOnBoard, which is based on user story mapping method.
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Using story mapping is really useful to get everyone on the same page and understanding the big picture of what's being built.
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@khabaznak Totally agree with your point of view! Do you know StoriesOnBoard?
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@klajko_dora No I haven't used it yet! Thank you for the recommendation! And the integrations seem awesome!
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Notion! Customizable boards and pages... best tool ever
Trello board with lists of top product themes/domains (working on a personal finance product, so themes are "insights", "entry", "growth"...). Each list is organized by important and nice-to-have's items, separated by a fake "------" priority line. Every new release I pick up the important items from the themes I want to focus on ✌️🥸
Hi, For me this are the top 4 👇🏽
👉🏼Always prioritize.
👉🏼 Review your backlog periodically.
👉🏼Keep items you are not ready for off the backlog.
👉🏼 Add only tasks you plan to do.
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@ibsylla13 this exact workflow have been doing wonders for my productivity.
Build two backlogs; one for your long-term roadmap and one for your current sprint. The long-term roadmap should include high level problems to be solved or planned product evolutions while the sprint backlog should include single-function features.
We build our long-term roadmap backlog every year based on our annual goals and we build our sprint backlog every six weeks based on our quarterly objectives and key results.
Having a weighted scoring mechnism has been one of the most important things I have implemented, the weighting helps keep the team focussed on what is important based on what the business is trying to achieve.
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