Common Backlog Management Challenges for Scrum Masters and How to Solve Them

As a Scrum Master, one of the most common challenges you might face is poor backlog management. A well-maintained backlog is crucial for an efficient development process, yet many teams struggle with keeping it organized and prioritized. Here are some typical problems and practical solutions to improve backlog management.

Poorly Prioritized Backlog

Product Owners (POs) may struggle to maintain a well-prioritized backlog due to various reasons:

• Too many unresolved tickets.
• Vague or frequently changing requirements leading to scope creep.
• Lack of proper labels, components, or priority settings in ticket properties.
• Limited technical knowledge, making it difficult to decide priorities effectively.

Solutions to Backlog Management Issues

1. Too Many Unresolved Tickets

Solution: Conduct regular backlog grooming sessions. Organize roundtable discussions with the PO and development team to review and prioritize tickets meaningfully. Focus on resolving older and high-impact tickets first.

2. Vague or Frequently Changing Requirements Leading to Scope Creep

Solution: Establish a structured requirement-gathering process. Encourage the PO to collaborate with stakeholders early and document clear acceptance criteria. Implement a change control process to assess the impact of requirement changes before they are added to the backlog. Regular backlog refinement meetings can help keep scope creep in check.

3. Poorly Defined Tickets & PO’s Limited Technical Knowledge

Solution: Encourage continuous collaboration between the PO and the development team. When a PO creates a ticket, ensure there is an ongoing discussion to clarify requirements and understand the resources needed for implementation. This helps in defining tickets more effectively and ensuring feasibility.

4. Missing Labels, Components, or Priorities in Ticket Properties

Solution: While POs should practice better backlog organization, the Scrum Master can support by helping define these properties. Ensuring proper categorization allows both the Scrum Master and the team to understand ticket priorities more easily.

Leveraging JQL for Better Backlog Management

Once backlog organization improves, using filter and JIRA Query Language (JQL) can enhance backlog management further. Here are some useful JQL queries:

• Finding Unresolved Issues with Labels, component, and user:

  project = "YourProject" AND status != Done AND priority = High AND labels = "Critical" AND component = "Backend" AND assignee = currentUser() ORDER BY created DESC

• Finding High-Priority Unresolved Issues:

  project = "YourProject" AND status != Done AND priority = High ORDER BY created DESC

• Identifying Tickets Without Labels:

  project = "YourProject" AND labels IS EMPTY

• Filtering Tickets Created in the Last 30 Days:

  project = "YourProject" AND created >= -30d

Bonus: Visualizing Backlog Status for Better Reporting

For better backlog management and reporting, leverage JIRA Dashboards or Confluence page charts integrated with JQL queries. These tools help visualize ticket status, making it easier to track progress and communicate updates to managers effectively.

This is what I do as a scrum master. But sometimes the similar problem will still happen no matter how hard we try to avoid. So we still need to handle this case by case based on the team.