Tame the Project Backlog
Take charge of your backlog of unstarted projects.
RETIRED CONTENT
Please note that the content on this page is retired. This content is not maintained and may contain information or links that are out of date.If you are a PMO or IT department that does not actively manage its project backlog, you are at risk of:
- Strained stakeholder relations.
- Diminishing returns on project backlog investments.
- Over-allocation of resources.
Disciplined project backlog management can enable:
- Improved stakeholder relations.
- Better rate of return on your project backlog investments.
- More even workloads.
Book Your Workshop
Onsite Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn’t enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our Project Workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a road map in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Create a Project Backlog Battle Plan
The Purpose
- Gauge the manageability of your project backlog in its current state.
- Calculate the total cost of your project backlog investments.
- Determine the root causes that contribute to the unmanageability of your project backlog.
Key Benefits Achieved
- An understanding of the organizational need for more disciplined backlog management.
- Visibility into the costs incurred by the project backlog.
- An awareness of the sources that feed the growth of the project backlog and make it a challenge to maintain.
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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1.1 | Calculate the sunk and marginal costs that have gone into your project backlog. |
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1.2 | Estimate the throughput of backlog items. |
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1.3 | Survey the root causes of your project backlog. |
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Module 2: Execute a Near-Term Project Backlog Cleanse
The Purpose
- Identify the most organizationally appropriate goals for your backlog cleanse.
- Pinpoint those items that warrant immediate removal from the backlog and establish a game plan for putting a bullet in them.
- Communicate backlog decisions with stakeholders in a way that minimizes friction and resistance.
Key Benefits Achieved
- An effective, achievable, and organizationally right-sized approach to cleansing the backlog.
- Criteria for cleanse outcomes and a protocol for carrying out the near-term cleanse.
- A project sponsor outreach plan to help ensure that decisions made during your near-term cleanse stick.
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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2.1 | Establish roles and responsibilities for the near-term cleanse. |
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2.2 | Determine cleanse scope. |
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2.3 | Develop backlog prioritization criteria. |
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2.4 | Prepare a communication strategy. |
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Module 3: Ensure Long-Term Project Backlog Manageability
The Purpose
- Ensure ongoing backlog manageability.
- Make sure the executive layer is aware of the ongoing status of the backlog when making project decisions.
- Customize a best-practice toolkit to help keep the project backlog useful.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A list of pending projects that is minimal, maintainable, and of high value.
- Executive engagement with the backlog to ensure intake and approval decisions are made with a view of the backlog in mind.
- A backlog management tool and processes for ongoing manageability.
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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3.1 | Develop a project backlog management operating model. |
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3.2 | Configure a project backlog management solution. |
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3.3 | Assign roles and responsibilities for your long-term project backlog management processes. |
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3.4 | Customize a project backlog management operating plan. |
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