How To Distribute Product Backlog Items To Multiple Teams?

Part 6 of my 8 part Training Series on Scaling Agile Practices

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This is the 6th post in our series of posts on Scaling Agile Practices.

In the last post, we explored the complexities of defining and streamlining roles and responsibilities within a multi-team Agile environment.

We highlighted the importance of having clear role definitions.

We discussed a few strategies to create “new” connector roles to support the scaled infrastructure.

All-in-all we ensured smooth coordination and productivity among interconnected teams.

But that leads to another big challenge.

How do we effectively manage the collective workload of these teams?

Or, in simple words, “How do we distribute work?”

How do we make sure that each team contributes optimally while aligning with the umbrella goals of the project/product?

No. It’s not just about listing PBIs or user stories.

It involves Strategic Planning and synchronization across different teams.

In a single team, managing the backlog is straightforward – the team focuses on its set of user stories, prioritized by its Product Owner.

Check Out: Backlog Refinement 101

However, when we scale to multiple teams, say Team A, Team B, and Team C, the situation becomes more intricate.

We face questions like:

• How do teams prioritize work when their backlogs intersect?

• What mechanisms ensure smooth coordination between teams on shared tasks?

• How is information about backlog changes communicated across teams?

Navigating these challenges is essential for maintaining an efficient workflow across all teams.

So, let’s take a closer look into:

• Understanding the multi-team backlog dynamics, and

• Developing effective strategies for managing it.

Here's where we currently stand in our “Scaling” journey:

1. Problems with Scaling

2. First Principles of Scaling

3. Perfecting Single-Team Agility

4. Multi-team alignment

5. Multi-team roles and responsibilities

6. Multi-team backlog ← this post

7. Convergence

Let’s begin by exploring the “Law” that governs Multi-Team Backlog Allocation.