The Agile Product Backlog for Scrum Masters

How to Solicit Feedback about Priority

As an illustration, if there are 20 requirements and 100 points one team member could use the following schema to vote:

● For their top 5 priorities, they assign 8 points each to equal 40
● For their 6th – 10th priority items, they assign 6 points each to equal 30
● For their 11th to 15th priority items, they assign 4 points each to equal 20
● For their bottom 5 priorities, they assign 2 points each to equal 10

In total, they have allocated all 100 points.

By the end of the exercise, each requirement receives a score that is the tally of all votes and can be ordered by that score.

Managing Dependencies

By default, all stories that are known to be dependencies of other features will be given the same priority as the parent story they are required for.  These dependency stories should be selected to be completed before the parent story is required to be completed.

Sometimes this work may be assigned outside the core team; as is the case when a 3rd party vendor is doing development. Regardless of who is assigned to the tasks, if there is a delay in the delivery, especially if it is needed for another task, the Scrum Master will need to step in to investigate and do what they can to move the development forward.

Recommended Further Reading

The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: