Backlog Management

The primary goal of a strategic roadmap is to include all the main steps, required for the achievement of the strategic objectives. At the same time, it frequently happens that not all of the strategic ideas can immediately be reflected within the roadmap. A CEO can keep in mind plenty of potential strategic movements that a company can make in the future, as a reaction to the market changes or entrance of new competitors.

Some ideas concerning the future development of the company can appear during the discussion of the roadmap with investors, project managers, or other key stakeholders. However, if no one makes a record of these important thoughts, they can be easily passed out of mind as the meeting goes on. Goals by KeepSolid offers a unique opportunity to keep track of all the ideas that can be initiated during meetings or negotiations through its Backlog feature.

A backlog is a prioritized list of ideas, user stories, or strategic recommendations that has yet to be worked on. If you are not sure about the priority of some comments and user feedback implementation, you can also use this feature, adding some notes for future use. Now you can be sure that all the necessary information is close at hand anytime you are ready to promote the ideas that matter to new features.

The Backlog feature will make your ideas visible so that they become easier to plan and fulfill. You can create a separate backlog for each project in your document and later decide which points are critically important and which are just bonus features. This will help to properly specify the sequencing of the works, re-think the priorities, or simply decide when you should say “No”.

There are several important considerations that a CEO has to take into account within his backlog management:

• Any backlog should contribute to the strategic goals. Hence, all the items within the backlog are to be prioritized according to their impact on the long-term strategic direction of the company.
• A backlog should be easily manageable by all the engaged parties. Share your roadmap with the team members and stakeholders, who take part in its formation, in order to keep the whole document up-to-date. Now each contributor can add more ideas or comments to the particular backlog, offering more opportunities to develop your product.
• Each project has its own backlog. In some cases, the implementation and management of the particular backlog can be assigned to a person, who is responsible for the project this backlog is related to.

An effective backlog should be improved and enriched along with the development of the strategic direction. There are several important recommendations for the effective management of your backlog:

• Gather feedback from your team, stakeholders, and customers.
• Categorize all the ideas and comments, and assign them to specific backlogs within the relevant projects of your strategic roadmap.
• Prioritize your backlog items according to their contribution to the implementation of your strategy.
• Make some additional notes to your backlog items in case of necessity.