LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
The Product Backlog should expose work needed by the product, including maintenance, fixes, and technical debt reduction where relevant. Ordering requires choices: expected value, genuine urgency, risk, effort, dependencies, and missing information can change the sequence. A scoring method supports discussion, but its numbers still rely on assumptions and need interpretation. Explain the opportunity cost of selected work. An urgent request should include impact and deadline context rather than gaining priority solely from the requester’s position. Consult the team about capacity and feasibility. Scrum has no mandatory prioritization formula and no universal conversion between points and money.
Guided application
In an original example, the team has eight days of capacity for independent options. A three-day fix removes a recurring failure with documented impact; a seven-day integration depends on unavailable access; a five-day improvement has an observed benefit. Do not automatically assume that the item with the largest estimated benefit can go first. Expose the dependency and compare feasible combinations: three plus five uses eight days, while the integration first requires resolving access. This calculation simplifies a case and does not predict actual productivity. For technical debt, connect the proposal to concrete consequences such as incidents, recovery time, or the cost of change. When new information appears, revisit ordering and communicate what changed.
Three days plus five days fit a fictional capacity of eight days.
Common pitfalls
Scores treated as certainty; everything urgent; hiding maintenance; ignoring dependencies.
Related topics: Goal, value, and accountability · Needs and discovery · Refinement, criteria, and quality
Defensible ordering explains criteria, constraints, and deferred work.
Reference: Deciding on priorities · Scrum Guide November2020; EBM May2024; primary product practice reviewed 2026-09-30