Build the product backlog

Create a product backlog of user stories and defects. The product backlog serves as a basis for planning release backlogs.

Define themes and features

Define your product themes and features. For details, see Plan and track themes and Plan and track features.

Create and manage backlog items

  1. Open the Product Backlog > Backlog page.
  2. Make sure the Backlog Items View is selected.

  3. Perform the following actions:

    You can define user stories and defects in a file and import them into Agile Manager's product backlog. This is useful if you are migrating your backlog from another tool. For more details, see Import backlog items.

    Add user stories to the product backlog.

    Note: The following special characters are not supported in user story names: \ ^ *

    1. Click Add Item, and select User Story in the Type dropdown list.

    2. If you work with templates, select a template to use. The user story will be created with built-in details, such as pre-defined tasks. Templates are managed by workspace administrators.

    3. Estimate story points for each story. This helps you plan release and sprint backlogs according to their capacity. For more details, see Balancing release and sprint workloads.

    4. Define details for the user story, such as feature or application, team, or priority. This enables you to group and filter backlog items, and track the progress of the product at various levels.

      To show a filtered list of features, first select an application. The list of available features filtered to display only those features assigned to the selected application.

    Add a new backlog item reusing information from an existing backlog item.

    In any grid displaying backlog items, right-click a user story or a defect and select Copy Item.

    Provide a name for the new item or accept the default name <old name> - Copy and click Copy.

    The newly created item is an exact copy of the original item, with a new ID, a modified name, and with Status set to New.

    Note:  

    • A user field in an existing item may contain a user that no longer exists in the user list. If this is the case, the user field in the new copy of the item will be empty.
    • Required fields are not enforced when an item is created using Copy Item.

    A key factor in planning release and sprint backlogs effectively is arranging the backlog by rank. After items in the backlog are ranked, you can plan the highest ranking items to the next release or sprint backlog.

    For details, see Rank the backlog.

    Specify which of your applications a user story relates to.

    Select a backlog item, and click Set Application.

    The backlog item's feature and theme are automatically associated with the same application.

    Breaking a user story is useful for dividing a large user story into two or more smaller parts. You can postpone some of the new stories to later sprints or releases, and even assign them to other features.

    For details, see Create a group story.

    Select user stories or defects that you want to watch, and click More Actions > Add to My Watch List.

    • You will receive mail notifications upon status changes, or if the backlog item exceeds a storyboard time limit.
    • View a summary of your watched items in the My Watched User Stories and My Watched Defects widgets.

    If a backlog item has dependencies, an icon is displayed in the Linked Items column.

    • Filter by the Linked Items column to display items with dependencies.
    • Hover over the icon. A summary of the dependencies is displayed in the Linked Items section. Click View All to open a diagram of the item's dependencies.

    After development begins, use progress bars to track the progress of user stories and defects.

    Make sure the Progress column is displayed in the grid.

    • The amount of work done on a backlog item is measured by the time spent on the backlog item's tasks.
    • The progress bar represents the hours invested in the backlog item's tasks compared with the remaining hours.

Next steps

Before the beginning of a release, use backlog items from the product backlog to plan a release. For details, see Plan a release.

For a complete list of actions you can perform on backlog items, see Backlog item actions.