The Product Backlog Is Evil and Must Be Stopped
Kill the Product Backlog – An Essay (guest blogger Dan Greenberg) Agile (a set of values and principles) and Scrum (a tangible set of roles, artifacts, and events) each aim to eliminate wasted time and make work simpler, more enjoyable, and more effective. Yet, in many cases, when I walk into environments that have undergone Agile transformations or Scrum adoptions, I get a vibe that "this Agile thing" or "this Scrum thing" has added a whole bunch of work and overhead that didn't use to have to be done. There are off-the-record complaints that people used to be able to just come in and do work and now they have to update Jira, sit through brutal release planning sessions, report velocity, attend ten million status meetings, and prepare for terrifying demos. Upon reflection, most of that has to do with someone's obsession with this thing called the Product Backlog, a term that I'm starting to wish the Scrum Guide had left out. Here is