Flexibility and agility are key to success and business performance.  Many Service providers have adopted Agile methods to ensure that they can meet demand for increasing changes in business requirements.  Product Backlogs are common and are generally understood; but what about Process Backlogs? Product Backlog – In the “Scrum Guide” Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland describe the Product Backlog as an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product.  It is the single source of requirements for changes to be made to the product. The Product Owner is responsible for the Product Backlog, including its content, availability, and ordering.  A Product Backlog is never complete. The earliest development of it only lays out the initially known and best-understood requirements. The Product Backlog evolves as the product and the environment in which it will be used evolves. The Product Backlog is dynamic; it constantly changes to identify what the product needs to be app

If a product backlog is growing faster than you deploy, if it cannot be prioritized properly, and business outcomes suffer, are your “Agile” efforts really working?   Agile software development is a group of software development methods in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams . It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. A broken product backlog is only one of many symptoms that something is broken. If there are bottlenecks in change, delivery and deployment than what real value can evolutionary and faster development bring to the business?  It is time to consider “Agile Service Management”. Agile Service Management ensures that agile principles and methods go beyond software development t o ensure the product backlog is in control and that we, as service providers, can meet the s