Backlog Review
Purpose: Present customer opportunities. Team selects what to build.
Cadence: Weekly
Duration: 30-45 minutes
Inputs Required
- Maintained backlog of customer opportunities
- For each opportunity: customer problem, potential scopes (1-day, 3-day, 1-week, 2-week)
- Team availability for the upcoming week
The Backlog
Each opportunity should be scoped with:
- What's the customer problem?
- What would "useful in 1 day" look like?
- What would "useful in 1 week" look like?
- What would "useful in 1 month" look like?
This isn't detailed requirements—it's rough scoping to help the team understand what they're committing to.
Format
1. Present Opportunities (15 min)
Walk through backlog items. For each: what's the problem, who's the customer, what are the scope options?
2. Questions & Discussion (10 min)
Team asks clarifying questions. What's unclear? What's risky? What's exciting?
3. Selection (10 min)
Team picks what to work on. Not assigned—chosen. Each person commits to a timebox.
4. Schedule Build Days (5 min)
When are builds happening? When are demos?
Outputs
- Selected work for the week
- Committed timeboxes (who's doing what, for how long)
- Scheduled build days and demos
Tips
- The team picks, not leadership. Ownership starts with choice.
- It's okay to say "nothing here interests me this week." Surface that—it's signal about the backlog quality.
- Rough scoping is enough. Detailed requirements come during the build.
- If the same item sits in the backlog for weeks, either scope it smaller or kill it.
- New opportunities can jump the queue if they're urgent and interesting.
How It Differs From Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is for prioritizing work in progress—reviewing feedback, adjusting priorities mid-stream.
Backlog Review is for selecting new work—looking at the full menu of customer opportunities and choosing what to start.
Both happen weekly. Backlog Review feeds into Sprint Planning.
See also: Sprint Planning | Demo Spec