Tame the Project Backlog

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Unmanaged project backlogs can become the bane of IT departments, tying IT leaders and PMO staff down to an ever-growing receptacle of project ideas that provides little by way of strategic value and that typically represents a lack of project intake and approval discipline.
Decision makers frequently use the backlog to keep the peace. Lacking the time to assess the bulk of requests, or simply wanting to avoid difficult conversations with stakeholders, they “approve” everything and leave it to IT to figure it out.
As IT has increasing difficulty assessing – let alone starting – any of the projects in the backlog, stakeholder relations suffer. Requestors view inclusion in the backlog as a euphemism for “declined,” and often characterize the backlog as the place where good project ideas go to die.
Faced with these challenges, you need to make your project backlog more useful and reliable. The backlog may contain projects worth doing, but in its current untamed state, you have difficulty discerning, let alone capitalizing upon, those instances of value.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Project backlogs are an investment and need to be treated as such. Incurring a cost impact that can be measured in terms of time and money, the backlog needs to be actively managed to ensure that you’re investing wisely and getting a good return in terms of strategic value and project throughput.
Unmanageable project backlogs are rooted in bad habits and poorly-defined processes. Identifying the sources that fuel backlog growth is key to long-term success. Unless the problem is addressed at the root, any gains made in the near-term will simply fade away as old, unhealthy habits re-emerge and take hold.
Backlog management should facilitate executive awareness about the status of backlog items as new work is being approved. In the long run, this ongoing executive engagement will not only help to keep the backlog manageable, but it will also help to bring more even workloads to IT project staff.

Impact and Result

Keep the best, forget the rest. Develop a near-term approach to limit the role of the backlog to include only those items that add value to the business.
Shine a light. Improve executive visibility into the health and status of the backlog so that the backlog is taken into account when decision makers approve new work.
Evolve the organizational culture. Effectively employ organizational change management practices to evolve the culture that currently exists around the project backlog in order to ensure customer-service needs are more effectively addressed.
Ensure long-term sustainability. Institute processes to make sure that your list of pending projects – should you still require one after implementing this blueprint – remains minimal, maintainable, and of high value.

Tame the Project Backlog Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how a more disciplined approach to managing your project backlog can help you realize increased value and project throughput.

Tame the Project Backlog – Executive Brief

1. Create a project backlog battle plan

Calculate the cost of the project backlog and assess the root causes of its unmanageability.

2. Execute a near-term backlog cleanse

Increase the manageability of the backlog by updating stale requests and removing dead weight.

3. Ensure long-term backlog manageability

Develop and maintain a manageable backlog growth rate by establishing disciplined backlog management processes.

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Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Create a backlog battle plan

Call 1: Scoping call.
Call 2: Calculate the sunk and marginal costs that comprise your backlog.
Call 3: Survey the role that stakeholder influence, poorly defined processes, excessive customer service, and opaque capacity awareness play in the unmanageability of your project backlog.

Guided Implementation 2: Execute a near-term backlog cleanse

Call 1: Choose an achievable target state for your near-term cleanse, establishing an effective and realistic target ratio of cancelled projects.
Call 2: Develop prioritization criteria for your cleanse.
Call 3: Develop a communication strategy to reduce sponsor resistance.

Guided Implementation 3: Ensure long-term backlog manageability

Call 1: Review backlog management models and choose the one most appropriate to your organization.
Call 2: Configure and populate the Project Backlog Management Tool.
Call 3: Establish processes for backlog review and assign roles and responsibilities.