The Product Backlog is so much more than a simple priority list. It is a plan for how the Product Owner and the Scrum Team will deliver the Product Goal and maximize value. But the Product Owner can't come up with this list - or even order it - entirely in a vacuum. Stakeholder feedback as well as input from the Developers is invaluable to ensuring that the Product Backlog is a good plan.
Having a good conversation about the ordering of the Product Backlog comes down to great facilitation, and a good facilitator needs a toolkit. Here are six great facilitation approaches for encouraging debate and discussion on the content and ordering of the Product Backlog.
1. 20/20
This is my favorite technique because it considers not just priority but also technical and business dependencies. But I only use it when we have some time, because it can be time consuming.
I once used this when I was the Scrum Master for a team launching a product to deliver a government contract. The deadline was immovable. We simply could not miss it. That meant we had to be very deliberate about what we built first and why.
So we took all of our major features, wrote them on sticky notes, and brought together developers and stakeholders to order them using this technique. The goal was to consider both business value and development dependencies so we could build the backlog in the order the work actually needed to be delivered.
It turned out to be one of the most valuable activities we did. I honestly don’t think we would have met our deadline without it.
How to run the 20/20 method
Write each important Product Backlog Item on a separate sticky note (physical or virtual).
Randomly select one sticky note and place it on the wall.
Randomly pick another sticky note.
Ask the group:
Is this more or less important than the one already placed?
Should it go above or below it?
Does it need to happen before or after due to a dependency?
Place the second sticky note above or below the first.
Continue selecting items randomly and placing them in relation to those already on the wall.
Repeat until all items have been placed in order.
Strengths
Forces a clear ordering of backlog items.
Surfaces technical and business dependencies.
Encourages developers and stakeholders to discuss trade-offs.
Weaknesses
Can take time with very large backlogs.
2. Gallery Walk + Voting
A gallery walk is a great way to generate improvement ideas and get broad input from a large group.
I once worked with a company that hired pwc to help us create the IT roadmap for the next five years. Their facilitation approach was actually pretty awesome.
They asked us to print our system diagrams and hang them around a conference room. Then everyone in the IT department was placed into groups of five people with the same specialization. So for example:
Five project managers together
Five developers together
Five analysts together
They intentionally did not make the groups cross-functional. Their reasoning was that each group would evaluate the systems from their own professional perspective.
Over the course of a week, each group was asked to visit the room and brainstorm ideas for improving the systems.
We had unlimited sticky notes and could place ideas directly on the wall next to the relevant system diagram.
The following week, each group was given seven red dots to vote with. As a group, we placed our votes next to the improvement ideas we believed were the most important.
That’s how the entire staff of the IT organization provided input to executive leadership about which improvements mattered most.
How to run a Gallery Walk
Print or display the systems, products, or backlog areas you want feedback on.
Place them around a room or on a digital board.
Divide participants into groups
Give participants time over several days to review the items and brainstorm ideas.
Provide sticky notes so people can place improvement ideas next to the relevant item.
After the brainstorming period, give each group a limited number of votes (you can use stickers or dots).
Each group places their votes on the ideas they believe are most important.
Strengths
Generates a large number of ideas.
Encourages thinking from different professional perspectives.
Provides clear input leadership can review.
Weaknesses
Can take a couple of weeks for feedback to be gathered
Does not take into account level of effort or dependencies or even feasibility
Be sure and use good sticky notes that will stay up for two weeks
3. Kano Analysis
Kano isn’t one of my favorite techniques. I’ll admit that up front. I sometimes find it confusing in practice.
But I continue to use it because it creates a kind of conversation that’s hard to get any other way.
I once worked with an organization that wanted to re-define their products. We held a two-day workshop with the leadership team — executives, directors, and managers.
During those two days we worked together to define the products of the organization.
At the end of the workshop we asked a simple question:
Which of these products are most important to the organization?
Instead of voting or ranking them directly, we used Kano analysis.
The exercise didn’t produce a perfectly ordered list, but it did something better. It forced leaders to talk about why certain products mattered.
Some products were clearly essential foundations, while others were potential delighters.
The discussion was incredibly valuable.
How to run a Kano exercise
List the products, features, or backlog items being evaluated.
Review each one with the group.
Ask participants to classify them into categories such as:
Basic Needs – expected capabilities
Performance Needs – features that increase satisfaction as they improve
Delighters – unexpected features that create excitement
Capture the reasoning behind each classification.
Strengths
Encourages thinking about customer satisfaction.
Highlights the difference between necessary capabilities and delighters.
Creates meaningful leadership discussions.
Weaknesses
Can feel abstract or confusing.
Does not produce a prioritized backlog on its own.
4. Buy a Feature
Buy a Feature is a great way to help stakeholders think about value and effort together. I used this technique once when we were trying to determine our roadmap for the following year.
We listed all the projects and major initiatives we were considering and placed a rough hour estimate next to each.
Then we converted those estimates into prices.
But before sharing them, we moved the decimal point several places. So something that might realistically cost $500,000 appeared in the exercise as $50.
The reason for this was simple: we didn’t want anyone to think we were making real financial commitments.
Then we gave each stakeholder $300 to spend and asked them a simple question:
If this was your money, what would you spend it on?
Watching what they chose — and what they ignored — was incredibly revealing.
How to run Buy a Feature
List the projects, initiatives, or backlog items under consideration.
Estimate the relative effort required for each.
Convert those estimates into relative prices.
Adjust the prices so they don’t resemble real budgets.
Give each participant a fixed budget to spend.
Ask them to “buy” the items they value most.
Strengths
Takes into account both effort and value
Highly engaging for stakeholders.
Reveals what people actually value most.
This can be done asynchronously with a shared spreadsheet.
Weaknesses
Requires thoughtful pricing.
5. White Elephant
This is a technique I don’t use often, but when I do, it’s usually because the group isn’t communicating effectively.
I once used this with a group of IT leaders. Each of them had strong opinions about why their work was the most important work in the organization.
The problem was that they weren’t really listening to each other.
So I put them in a room together and ran this activity until we reached consensus. It went surprisingly well because each person was encouraged to share their perspective. Even more importantly, there cannot be "ties" in the white elephant game. You walk out with an ordered backlog with no ties allowed. You can ask your stakeholders to consider dependencies as well.
How to run the White Elephant method
Write each backlog item on a separate sticky note.
Draw a Likert scale on a board that runs from something like:
From "Meh" at the bottom to "Top Priority" at the top.
One at a time, participants silently place sticky notes on the board.
Once everything is placed:
Each participant may move someone else’s sticky note up or down. But they can only move one sticky note per "turn".
They must explain why they moved it.
Continue taking turns over and over again until everyone agrees to the ordering.
Strengths
Ensures everyone participates.
Encourages people to explain their reasoning.
Can help groups reach consensus.
Weaknesses
Works best with people comfortable challenging ideas respectfully.
If participants are overly polite, they may hesitate to move items.
6. The RICE Technique
The RICE technique is a more analytical approach to prioritization. It’s especially helpful for teams that are overwhelmed with requests and need a more objective way to evaluate what matters most.
I once worked with a Marketing team that absolutely loved this technique. They were constantly flooded with more requests than they could ever deliver — campaigns, promotions, content ideas, events, and product launches.
Everyone believed their request was urgent and important.
Using the RICE technique gave the team something they didn’t have before: a structured and somewhat scientific way to say no to the lowest value work.
How to run the RICE technique
Define the scoring categories:
Reach – How many people will this impact?
Impact – How much will it affect the user or business?
Confidence – How confident are we in our assumptions?
Effort – How much work will it take to deliver?
Agree on a scoring system before evaluating items.
For example:
Use a 1–5 scale for each category.
Or use the Fibonacci number sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13).
The most important thing is that the team agrees on what the numbers mean in their context. For example:
What does a 5 in Reach represent?
What does a 3 in Impact mean for your customers?
What qualifies as high vs low effort?
Once the scoring system is agreed upon:
Score each backlog item across the four categories.
Calculate the score:
RICE Score = (Reach × Impact × Confidence) ÷ Effort
Items with the highest scores typically rise to the top of the backlog.
Strengths
Provides a data-informed approach to prioritization.
Helps teams justify decisions when saying no to low-value work.
Useful when there are many competing requests.
Weaknesses
It's a bit easy to game the system by having a high confidence number. Some people will remove the confidence column for this reason.
Final Thoughts
None of these techniques magically produces the perfect Product Backlog.
What they do is something more important.
They create structured conversations about value, dependencies, and priorities. And in my experience, the teams that make the best backlog decisions are the ones who have the best conversations about the work.
If you’re looking for even more facilitation ideas, I highly recommend visiting liberatingstructures.com, which has dozens of excellent techniques for engaging groups in productive conversations.
And if you want to deepen your facilitation and backlog management skills, consider joining one of our classes at Rebel Scrum, including:
Both courses are designed to help Scrum practitioners create better conversations and ultimately build better products.