Backlog Definition, Meaning & Synonyms

A backlog’s utility lies in the accuracy and volume of its contents and how that enables the product team to prioritize future work. It is the master repository of every valid request, idea, and possibility for the product, product extensions, or even entirely new offerings. Product teams that use the agile development framework divide their work into sprints. These are short development time blocks, usually, a couple of weeks or a month, during which the team works on a limited set of tasks.

Likewise, a falling backlog might be a portentous sign of lagging demand but may also signify improving production efficiency. Naturally, unexpected backlogs can compromise forecasts and production schedules. An existing workload that exceeds current production capacity is a backlog. The term „backlog” has a number of uses in accounting and finance. It may, for example, refer to a company’s sales orders waiting to be filled or a stack of financial paperwork, such as loan applications, that needs to be processed.

Other Word Forms of Backlog

An accumulation or buildup, especially of unfilled orders, unconsumed products or unfinished work.He went to work on Saturday to try to work through the backlog of papers on his desk. When Apple debuted the iPhone X, a 10th-anniversary edition of the iPhone, in October 2017, overwhelming initial demand for the phone created a weeks-long backlog on pre-orders. Apple was forced to delay shipments to late November and then again to December for customers pre-ordering the phone upon launch. Many criticized the backlog as an example of poor sales forecasting by Apple, which saw a similar situation happen when the firm debuted its Apple Watch product in 2015.

• DisclaimerAll content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only.
• Improve the accuracy of product release forecasts by creating a common denominator across many teams collaborating on one product.
• They include words and phrases such as broke, down payment, advertising, charisma, fine print, input, throughput, memo, nitty-gritty, streamline, backlog, breakthrough, feedback, and format.
• Suddenly, it is receiving 2,000 orders per day, but its production capacity remains at 1,000 shirts per day.
• It’s quite common to push a release live with a large collection of minor defects.

A backlog is the aggregate sale value of all received customer orders that have not yet been shipped. A backlog is present when the production capacity of a business is less than the rate at which orders are being received. The trend line of the backlog can be monitored to see if it changes over time. An increasing backlog indicates a substantial order book that will eventually translate into future sales, or a decline in production capacity. A declining backlog indicates that there will eventually be a drop in sales, or that the production capacity of the business has increased. In the area of trendy consumer goods, the seller might attempt to artificially maintain a small backlog, which gives the impression that a high level of demand exists for the product.

Backlog Sentence Examples

Close your vocabulary gaps with personalized learning that focuses on teaching the words you need to know. There are also backlogs at other federal agencies involved in processing legal asylum requests, such as visas and attempts to reunite with family members who are already in the country. Add backlog to one of your lists below, or create a new one. Once a large backlog develops in the second queue, the customers are all routed to the first queue.

Value — the business value of the item, as determined by the person who runs the backlog grooming process. Depending on the structure of your organization and whether you employ Scrum and agile methods, the backlog https://globalcloudteam.com/ grooming process could be performed in the form of regular recurring meetings. Backlog isn’t managed properly — Without good backlog management, backlogs can get messy, unorganized, too long, and lack focus.

Provide a single source of truth for the team’s planned work.

Symbotic’s backlog of unfilled customer orders for robots totaled $12 billion. Orders are starting to backlog faster than we can process them. There is a growing and significant backlog of repair and maintenance to buildings.

Manage your backlog like a pro using Hansoft, the Agile backlog management tool for productive teams. Bugs and defects are problems discovered by end users that escaped quality control during development. In a Waterfall process, testing is often the last step of the development lifecycle. It’s quite common to push a release live with a large collection of minor defects. Bugs tend to cluster and accumulate over time if they aren’t resolved.

What is a Backlog

However, if deadlines are missed, the order backlog turns into overload. Customer Effort Score Customer effort score is a customer experience metric that measures the effort customers put into interacting with a business. Backlog grooming is the process of refining, adjusting, and updating the Scrum backlog, so it corresponds with the stakeholders’ vision of the product. Product Backlog is a prioritized to-do list that comes after you paint the bigger picture with a Product Roadmap.

These will vary in complexity, but owners will need to elaborate on them as they approach the top of the list and become action items. Definition and synonyms of backlog from the online English dictionary from Macmillan Education. ˈbacklog noun a pile of uncompleted work etc which has collected. Sales price variance is the difference between the price a business expects to sell its products or services for and what it actually sells them for. Shiny object or pet project (“it’s in the backlog, we’ll get to it eventually”).

Customer Effort Score

He has 5+ years of experience as a content strategist/editor. A backlog can serve several essential functions for an organization. Stories about ice pancakes, Mars earthquakes, and wild Welsh ponies all contributed words to this list of vocabulary from the week’s news.

A prioritized list of deliverables that should be implemented as part of a project or product development. Resolution Rate Resolution rate is a key performance indicator that measures the number of customer requests that customer support resolves in a certain period. Product Owners belong to both Agile and Product Management teams, making them responsible for backlog management. Backlog items are not specific enough — Backlog requires collaboration between teams and needs to be written in a language everybody involved understands. Each item should be described in detail, following backlog guidelines. Additionally, backlogs bring the teams together for idea brainstorming .

Science, technology and business

One Product Backlog is used to describe the upcoming work on the product. Is often qualified to indicate the nature of work to be done; materials needing treatment might be described as a „preservation backlog.” A product Roadmap is a high-level tool that shows where the product is headed in the months/years to come, and techniques and practices for product backlog why. The solution here is to provide guidelines for user story submissions to ensure all team members know how to get their message across. We’ve all heard of ‘scope creep’, and a backlog is a great way to actually visualize this phenomenon in action. Agile model, so it’s vital to have one overarching source of truth.