Product backlog template

First, input your project's task names and/or descriptions. Naming consistency across the board will help your company in the long run. Some best practices include:

• Use verbs to describe necessary actions.

• Create specific names based on the feature or its capabilities, and be consistent. 

• Keep names short so tasks are easy to remember or find. 

• Don’t invent new words; use subject matter domain lingo common to your industry.

Add the start and end dates for each task, as well as a delivery date for the entire project. However, deadlines aren't the only thing you need to worry about. You also need to:

• Set clear deliverables for each task and due date. 

• Room for feedback loops from the necessary stakeholders.

• Account for iterations in your timeline. 

• Limit the number of tasks within a single sprint.

• Break down large tasks into smaller ones so the team can accomplish them more readily.

Next, assign tasks to your team. You want everyone to know who’s responsible for what. Clarity and autonomy empower your team and keep them engaged, so try to:

• Assign tasks to team members with the necessary skills to accomplish them.

• Encourage cross-collaboration among your team. 

• Provide clear instructions and feedback. 

Your team can’t execute everything at once. They need to understand how dependent each task is on the others. The Lean methodology can help you here. Remember, you must order tasks based on importance so the team knows what to tackle first.

• In Lean, you use a just-in-time approach, producing what you need when you need it. 

• Determine this using both customer and business needs. 

Context is king. You need to provide a reason for the work you want your team to tackle. User stories not only give a purpose to the work, but they also remedy a pain point. Additionally, you'll want to provide context because:

• User stories clarify how a feature or fix should work for the customer. 

• They're a statement from the user's perspective. 

• They clearly state who the users are, what they want the product to do, and its desired result. 

Effort estimation helps you set reasonable timelines and allocate resources appropriately. You can think of this as a forecast for how long the task will take. Remember to keep estimates at a high level, practice continuous improvement, and learn from past estimates. A few other things to consider include:

• Note estimates in hours, days, or weeks. 

• You can use story points to estimate. The planning poker exercise helps. That’s when the team discusses a backlog item and comes to a consensus on a time estimate. 

• Based on previous and similar work, use this formula to calculate your pace: time estimated divided by the actual time taken. 

Finally, automate manual labor that bogs your team in busy work. Various tools can accomplish this, such as: 

• GitHub: Automate your pull requests and updates through GitHub. 

• Jira Service Management: Connect dev or IT teams with customer service teams’ workflows.

• Slack: Manage and automate ticketing and request workflows through Slack.