Although often relegated, one of the biggest challenges in the design of new products is managing the product backlog in order to align the strategic objectives of the business and user needs. Here is presented a model that unifies user studies and backlog management in order to improve the return on investment (ROI) in agile projects.
7. Product Backlog
An ordered list of everything that might
be needed in the product and is the
single source of requirements for any
changes to be made to the product.
Scwaber and Sutherland
14. 1
2
3
4
Define a ‘ User
Value’ (UV) for
each user profile
Define a Business
Value (BV) for each
feature
Assign the feature
to an user and find
the final feature
value (FV)
Calculate the ROI
using FV and the
effort defined by
the development
team
25%
35%
FV = 24,5%
35%
Feature effort = 13
70%
30%
45%
70%
FV = 24,5%
Personas!
You can use
percentages (relative)
or scores (absolute)
Feature Value is a
weighted average
ROI = 1,88
Feature effort can be
story points, scores,
hours, etc
15. FV
How relevant is the
feature for achieving
a business goal?
Business
Value (BV)
How relevant is a
given user type
and its needs?
+
User Value
(UV)
Feature
ROI
The higher the
ROI, the greater
the value of the
feature for the
product
ROI = FV / C
Feature
Complexity
(C)
What is the effort in
order to get the feature
done?
16. Findings from 2 years
20% to 30% more value delivered
(compared to simple ranking)
Most useful in the beginning of the project
Better if used along with other backlog
prioritization methods
Needs a product owner to maintain it
The tool used makes the difference
17. Conclusions
Allows real efficiency and quality gains
Connects user research with agile backlog
management.
Decentralizes the feature prioritization
process