For any product that has users and a future, inputs for product direction come in from different quarters. - Product marketing and sales guys - Senior management - Product manager's vision - Existing customers - Prospective customers - End user input via support channel - End user feedback via social media - Competition - Industry trends - Product development team These inputs may be at the granularity of feature requests or more strategic. If these inputs are collected and curated carefully, it can be an invaluable basis for prioritizing the backlog. But this calls for a fair amount of effort and typically, the product owner or product manager don't have the time to do justice to this job. As a result, we end up with a uncurated backlog that is scattered in people's minds, emails, ticket management system, project management tool, presentations etc. This leads to somewhat unscientific prioritization. There is a role of backlog curator lurking in here. Need not a full time role but something that a product analyst (BA) can do for say one-third of the time. In the talk/workshop we'll explore some techniques for effective curation and retrieval that enable a more data-informed approach to backlog prioritization.

1. Workshop
on
Cura-ng
a
Product
Backlog
Sriram
Narayan
BAconf
Aug-­‐2013

3. Quick
audience
poll

4. Timely
Early
entrant
Stable
product
business
–
many
customers
Challenges
to
sales
growth
Increasing
compe--on

5. Product
backlog
=
story
(requirements)
backlog

6. What
are
sources
of
valid
input?

7. Sources
Marke-ng
Sales
Product
Vision
Execs
Prospects
Customers
End
users
Compe--on
Industry
trends
Prod
dev
team
Other
internal
users
Channels
Email
Mee-ng
Social
Media
Blog
post
Support
Call
center
VoC
interviews
Surveys

8. How
do
we
keep
track
of
all
this
informa-on?

9. What
fields
to
track?

10. To
what
end?

11. What
insights
do
we
want?
• Top
missing
features/capabili-es
leading
to
opportunity
loss
• Our
weaknesses
compared
to
compe--on
• Our
strengths
compared
to
compe--on
• Overlap
of
vision
with
demand
• Top
missing
features/capabili-es
leading
to
customer
aVri-on

12. • Most
used
features
• Most
un-­‐used
features
• Most
liked
features
• Most
requested
S/M/L
features,
by
user
segment
• Top
usability
complaints
• Most
under-­‐documented
features

13. What
fields
to
track?

14. Date
Name
Org
Name
Source
Type
Channel
Area
Insight

15. Form
teams
of
4-­‐6
45
seconds
per
card
Ques-ons
welcome

16. Tips
• Cura-on,
not
priori-za-on
• Don’t
think
about
accep-ng/rejec-ng
the
input
• Rota-ng
scribe
• Use
the
bigger
s-cky
to
copy
the
descrip-on
• Curate
on
the
fly
• First
one
-­‐
sample

17. 14-­‐Mar-­‐13
Who:
ITC
Via:
f2f
Allow
me
to
add
resources
(rooms,
projectors)
to
meeEngs
created
by
others
1
of
20
Date
Who:
Customer/
other
Via:
email/social
media/f2f…
DescripEon
of
input

18. 01-­‐Jan-­‐12
Who:
Pd
Mgr
Via:
Vision
2
way
sync
with
mobile
2
of
20

19. 01-­‐Feb-­‐13
Who:
Pd
team
Via:
Show
room
in
weekly
summary
3
of
20

20. 19-­‐Oct-­‐12
Who:
Flipkart
Via:
SF-­‐lost
prospect
fdbk
Migrate
entries
from
Google
calendar
4
of
20

21. 10-­‐May-­‐13
Who:
Tata
Motors
Via:
SF-­‐lost
prospect
fdbk
Ability
to
toggle-­‐view
all
events
that
I
haven’t
responded
to
5
of
20

22. 21-­‐Jan-­‐13
Who:
Google
Via:
CompeEEon
Integrate
todo
list
with
calendar
6
of
20

23. 22-­‐Jun-­‐13
Who:
ITC
Via:
Support
Support
offline
mode
so
that
I
can
see
details
en-­‐route
to
room
without
wifi
7
of
20

24. 12-­‐Dec-­‐12
Who:
Sr.Mgmt
Via:
f2f
Quickly
see
if
I
am
required
or
opEonal
8
of
20

25. 06-­‐Apr-­‐13
Who:
Rita
(free
user)
Via:
twi]er
I
wish
Emely
would
also
let
me
manage
my
todo
list
9
of
20

26. 10-­‐Oct-­‐12
Who:
Pd
Mgr
Via:
Vision
Provide
stats
of
Eme
spent
in
meeEngs.
Break
down
by
f2f,
web
conf,
tele
con
10
of
20

27. 23-­‐Jan-­‐13
Who:
Redbus
Via:
SF-­‐lost
prospect
fdbk
Create
meeEngs
from
mobile
11
of
20

28. 22-­‐Sep-­‐11
Who:
Google
Via:
CompeEEon
Agenda
view
12
of
20

29. 12-­‐Feb-­‐13
Who:
Amit
(free
user)
Via:
blog
post
Too
many
steps
to
create
an
event
and
send
invite
13
of
20

30. 27-­‐Jan-­‐13
Who:
Axis
Bank
Via:
Sales
current
prospect
Migrate
entries
from
Lotus
Notes
14
of
20

31. 16-­‐Aug-­‐13
Who:
Rang
De
Via:
f2f
Show
venue
in
weekly
summary
15
of
20

32. 13-­‐Mar-­‐13
Who:
Goonj
Via:
Sales
Ability
to
mark
a
meeEng
as
f2f,
web
conf
or
tele
conf
16
of
20

33. 14-­‐Dec-­‐12
Who:Industry
Via:HBR
blog
Shorter
meeEngs.
Default
to
half
hour
17
of
20

34. 18-­‐Mar-­‐13
Who:Tyto
soeware
Via:
Support
Please
add
support
for
changing
Emezone.
(resolved
by
showing
them
how)
18
of
20

35. 15-­‐Nov-­‐12
Who:MarkeEng
Via:
(Opt-­‐out)
Ability
to
auto-­‐schedule
promoEonal
events
into
the
calendars
of
free
users
19
of
20

36. 09-­‐Jun-­‐13
Who:Zinnov
ConsulEng
Via:Support
Why
isn’t
it
possible
to
change
from
24
hr
clock.
(resolved
by
showing
them
how)
20
of
20

37. Time
to
test
our
cura-on

38. Select,
organize,
and
look
ager
the
items
in
(a
collec-on
or
exhibi-on).

39. Good
curator
types
Type
CharacterisEcs
VocaEons
INFJ
Observer,
organized,
values
solitude
Art/museum
curator,
archivist,
librarian,
art
historian
INTP
observer,
relies
more
on
mind
Researcher,
historian
INTJ
observer,
orderly,
clean,
organized
Researcher,
curator,
librarian
Source:
similarminds.com

40. What
next?
• A
curated
backlog
can
be
used
as
a
sound
basis
for
– Valida-ng,
tweaking
the
roadmap
– Deciding
the
next
set
of
features
to
work
on
– Data-­‐informed
priori-za-on

41. Thank
you
@sriramnarayan
comments,
ques-ons,
feedback?