Backlog size is inversely proportional to how often you talk to customers

Instead of spending time planning and concocting roadmaps, replace that activity by talking to current or potential customers on how their lives can be improved, and letting that determine your next feature. Injecting the actual customer who uses the software into the development process is key to creating value. The more proxies you have between t... See more

There is no point to having a large backlog because the bigger the backlog, the higher the unvalidated assumptions, and the lower the chance that it creates any customer value. I have made too many mistakes assuming that something is valuable, when nobody cares about it. A large backlog should be looked at with an extremely high degree of skepticis... See more

The MVP is not an excuse to deliver a poor customer experience by cutting corners in the face of date pressures, which is what most orgs used them as. It is there to answer specific questions about whether another iteration is needed, and if so, what it could be? This question is rarely asked let alone answered, resulting in Melissa Perri’s feature... See more

Implementing that feedback depends on how well-designed your UI code is, and focusing on good component design instead of wireframe/visual designs is time well spent. A product’s capacity to implement UI customer feedback is more important than a product’s initial UI, yet we tend to focus far too much on the latter with heavy design up front. Small... See more