Edit

Create your product backlog in Azure Boards

  • Article
  • 14 minutes to read

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018

Your product backlog corresponds to your project plan, the roadmap for what your team plans to deliver. You create your product backlog by adding user stories, backlog items, or requirements. As shown in the following image, your backlog consists of a flat list of work items.

Note

The following image illustrates the product backlog image for a Scrum process for Azure DevOps Services. For the Agile, Basic, and CMMI process models, the Backlog items selection appears as Stories, Issues, and Requirements.

Screenshot of a Backlog of Scrum process product backlog items.

After you define it, you have a prioritized list of features and requirements to build. Your backlog also provides a repository of the information you need to track and share with your team. And, you can interactively filter the backlog to focus on a subset of work items.

Note

For guidance on configuring and customizing your project and teams to support your business needs, review Configuration and customization of Azure Boards.

Your backlog consists of a list of work items. You use work items to share information, assign work to team members, track dependencies, organize work, and more. Because the most important work appears at the top of the list, your team always knows what to work on next.

Note

Your product backlog is one of three classes of backlogs available to you. For an overview of the features supported on each backlog and the two types of boards, see Backlogs, boards, and plans. If you're not seeing the work items you expect on your backlog, review Setup your backlogs and boards.

Add a backlog

If you have a project, you have a backlog. Each project defines a default team and set of backlogs for that team. You only need to add a backlog when you want to support a new team. When you add a team, you add various team assets. A team admin can configure the assets to support the way the team works. To add a set of backlogs to support a new team, see Add a team.

Each team's set of backlogs are associated with one or more work item types. The work item type associated with a backlog depends on the:

  • Process selected at project creation
  • Team configurations
  • Process customizations

The backlogs defined for each default process are:

  • Agile: Stories, Features, and Epics
  • Basic: Issues and Epics
  • Scrum: Backlog items, Features, and Epics
  • CMMI: Requirements, Features, and Epics
  • Agile: Stories, Features, and Epics
  • Scrum: Backlog items, Features, and Epics
  • CMMI: Requirements, Features, and Epics

You choose the backlog level from the backlog selector as shown in the following image.

Choose backlog level, Backlog items, Stories, or Requirements.

To customize your backlogs with custom work item types, add portfolio backlogs or other supported options. See the following articles, depending on the process your project uses:

To customize your backlogs to add custom work item types, add portfolio backlogs, or other supported options, see On-premises XML process model.

Prerequisites

Backlogs are automatically created when you create a project or add a team. Each team has access to their own product, portfolio, and sprint backlogs as described in About teams and Agile tools.

Note

Users with Stakeholder access for a public project have full access to backlog and board features just like users with Basic access. For details, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Open your backlog

From your web browser, open your product backlog.

  1. (1) Check that you've selected the right project, (2) choose Boards>Backlogs, and then (3) select the correct team from the team selector menu.

    Open Work, Backlogs, for a team

    To select another backlog, open the selector and then choose a different team or select the View Backlog directory option. Or, enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

    Choose another team

    Tip

    Choose the star icon to favorite a team backlog. Favorited artifacts ( favorited icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.

  2. Check that you have selected Stories (for Agile), Issues (for Basic), Backlog items (for Scrum), or Requirements (for CMMI) as the backlog level.

    Choose backlog level.

  3. (Optional) To choose which columns should display and in what order, choose the actions icon and select Column options. To learn more, see Change column options.

    Open Column Options

  1. Check that you selected the right project, and select Boards > Backlogs. Then select the correct team from the team selector menu.

    Open Boards > Backlogs, for a team

    To select another backlog, open the selector and then choose a different team or select the Browse all backlogs option. Or, enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

    Select another team

    Tip

    Select the star icon to make a team backlog a favorite. Favorite artifacts ( favorite icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.

  2. Check that you selected Stories for Agile, Issues for Basic, Backlog items for Scrum, or Requirements for CMMI as the backlog level.

    Select product backlog level, Backlog items, Stories, or Requirements

  3. (Optional) To select which columns display and in what order, select the actions icon and select Column options. To learn more, see Change column options.

    Open Column options

Tip

Each team member has several tools to configure their backlog view: Expand/Collapse one level, Column Options, Backlog level selector, View options, and Filter toolbar. Options set for each backlog level are distinct and persist until changed. To learn more, see Configure your backlog view.

On your web browser, open your team's product backlog and select the team from the project and team selector. Then select Work > Backlogs. Select the product backlog, which is Backlog items for Scrum, Stories for Agile, or Requirements for CMMI.

Open the Boards > Backlogs page

To select another team, open the project and team selector. Select a different team, or select the Browse option.

Select another team

Track bugs on your backlog

You can choose how you want to manage bugs. Some teams like to track bugs along with requirements on the backlog. Other teams like to track bugs as tasks completed in support of a requirement. The bugs then appear on their taskboard.

Before deciding, review Configure and customize, Treat bugs as requirements or tasks for guidance. Or, go directly to Show bugs on backlogs and boards.

Convert ideas into backlog items

Your backlog shows work that you plan to do or have started to work on. As soon as the State of a work item is set to Done or Completed, the work item no longer shows up on your backlog. You can use the backlog controls to filter or change your view.

Tip

If you already have defined a long list of items, you don't have to reenter them one at a time. Instead, use Import or update work items in bulk by using CSV files or Microsoft Excel to quickly import them to your backlog.

  1. Before you add work items, select View options and turn the slider for Parents and Forecasting to Off. Optionally, turn In Progress Items on or off.

    Add a product backlog item

  2. To add a work item, select New Work Item and enter a title. Then press Enter or select Add to top. Work items are automatically assigned the default Area Path and Iteration Path selected for the team. To learn more, see Configure team settings.

    Add the work item.

    Note

    If you have Stakeholder access , you can only add work items to the bottom of the backlog. For details, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

  3. Repeat this step to capture all your ideas as work items.

To build your backlog, enter a title and select Add. If you don't see the Add link, select New to open the quick add panel. Optionally, set In progress items to Show or Hide. Work items are automatically assigned the default Area Path and Iteration Path selected for the team. To learn more, see Configure team settings.

Add work items to the backlog

Note

If you have Stakeholder access , you can only add work items to the bottom of the backlog. For details, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Repeat this step until you capture all your main ideas.

Note

Depending on whether you create your project with Basic, Agile, Scrum, or CMMI, the items in your backlog might be called issues, user stories, PBIs, or requirements. All three are similar. They describe the customer value to be delivered and the work to be performed.

By default, user stories appear on Agile backlogs, issues on Basic backlogs, PBIs and bugs appear on Scrum backlogs, and requirements appear on CMMI backlogs.

Reorder your backlog

After you have some items in your backlog, reorder them to create a prioritized list of work. Review and prioritize your backlog frequently to help your team know what's most important to deliver next.

Tip

You can't sort your backlog on a column. To view a sorted listed, select Create query. Save and open the query, and then sort the query results. To learn more about queries, see Use the query editor to list and manage queries.

To reorder your backlog, drag the work items. Or, if you prefer to use the keyboard, hold down the Alt key and use the up and down arrows.

Reorder work items

Note

To reorder a backlog, you must have Basic or higher level access. If you have Stakeholder access, you can't reorder backlog items. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Backlogs that participate in portfolio management or that contain nested same-type child items might not allow you to reorder the items. For more information, see these articles:

Add details and estimates to backlog items

Building and prioritizing your backlog provides a high-level roadmap. Before your team can start work on any item, however, they need more details. Capture the details within the work item form.

To open each item, double-click or press Enter. Then add all the information you want to track. Change one or more field values, add a description, or make a note in the Discussion section. You can also choose the Attachments tab and drag a file onto it to share the file with others.

Enter as much detail as the team needs to:

  • Understand the scope.
  • Estimate the work required.
  • Develop tests.
  • Ensure that the end product meets acceptance criteria.

Note

You can only assign work to a single user. If you need to assign work to more than one user, add a work item for each user and distinguish the work to be done by title and description. The Assigned To field only accepts user accounts that have been added to a project or team.

For example, here we assign the story to Raisa Pokrovskaya and we add a discussion note, at-mentioning Raisa.

User Story work item form, add details

Choose Save & Close when done.

Tip

To plan a sprint, at a minimum, estimate the effort involved to implement each backlog item. To capture effort in the work item form, use Effort for Basic or Scrum, Story Points for Agile, or Size for CMMI.

Field

Usage

Effort, Story Points, Size

Provide a relative estimate of the amount of work required to complete a PBI. For user stories and requirements, you capture estimates in Story Points and Size.

Most Agile methods recommend that you set estimates for backlog items based on relative size of work. Such methods include powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8) and the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on). Use any numeric unit of measurement your team prefers.
The estimates you set for Effort, Size, or Story Points are used to calculate velocity and forecast sprints.

Business Value

Specify a priority that captures the relative value of a PBI compared to other PBIs. The higher the number, the greater the business value.
Use this field when you want to capture a priority separate from the changeable backlog stack ranking.

Description

Provide enough detail to create shared understanding of scope and support estimation efforts. Focus on the user, what they want to accomplish, and why. Don't describe how to develop the product. Do provide sufficient details so that your team can write tasks and test cases to implement the item.

Acceptance Criteria

Define what "Done" means by describing the criteria for the team to use to verify whether the PBI or the bug fix is fully implemented.

Before work begins on a PBI or bug, describe the criteria for customer acceptance as clearly as possible. Have conversations between the team and customers to determine the acceptance criteria. These criteria help ensure a common understanding within the team to meet customers' expectations. Also, this information provides the basis for acceptance testing.

Impact Assessment (CMMI only)

Describes the customer impact of not implementing the requirement. You might include details from the Kano model about whether this requirement is in the surprise, required, or obvious categories.

Show/hide items that are in progress

From the View options selector, you can choose to show or hide In Progress items. If you turn the In Progress control off, then items that are in the Active, Committed, or Resolved states or states that map to the In Progress category state won't appear in the backlog.

View options selector, In progress control

View options selector, In progress control

Choose In progress items show or hide In Progress backlog items. If you turn the In Progress items control off, then items that are in the Active, Committed, or Resolved states or states that map to the In Progress category state won't appear in the backlog.

You usually choose to hide In Progress items when you want to forecast work. To learn more, see Forecast your product backlog.

Show/hide child items that are complete

From the View options selector, you can choose to show or hide Completed Child items.

View options selector, Completed child items control

You usually choose to show Completed child items when you want to view rollup columns.

You usually choose to hide Completed child items when you want to forecast work. To learn more, see Forecast your product backlog.

Note

Completed or closed work items don't display on the backlogs and boards once their Changed Date is greater than 183 days (about a half a year). You can still list these items using a query. If you want them to show up on a backlog or board, then you can make a minor change to them which resets the clock.

Note

Completed or closed work items don't display on the backlogs and boards once their Changed Date is greater than a year old. You can still list these items using a query. If you want them to show up on a backlog or board, then you can make a minor change to them which resets the clock.

Try this next

Now that you have a working backlog in place, your team can begin work on the top-priority items. From here, it's time to decide how you want to work as a team. Do you want to use Scrum or Kanban? You can use these methods independently or together.

Scrum: Schedule sprints or Kanban

Teams that want the least overhead for tracking and estimating might prefer Kanban. Teams that like to work at a steady cadence and plot the details of their sprint plan might prefer Scrum and sprint planning.