Bulldozer00's Blog

Some people like to ask: “What happened before the big bang?“. Being a geeko-nerd, I like to ask: “What happened before the first product backlog?”.

Regarding agile framework definitions, IMO, Scrum has the most well-documented and coherent definition of the bunch. However, since it remains silent on the issue, I still wonder: “WTF happens before the first product backlog?”.

For innately complex systems requiring a large amount of coordinated effort, here’s what I think should happen:

• A small group of senior domain analysts and system architects should spend a fair amount of un-pressured time to develop and document the high level, technical blueprints (structures + behaviors) for what needs to be built.
• The authoring group should disseminate and educate the rest of the development team on the technical vision.
• The team should populate and iterate on the first version of the product backlog.
• The team should decide on, and put in place, the development toolset and infrastructure that will be used to develop and test the system throughout the effort.
• The team, including the technical authors, should start incrementally and iteratively building the system – revisiting/updating the plans/product backlog frequently when new knowledge is discovered as the project moves forward.

What do YOU think should happen before the first product backlog?