Product Backlog, Product Owner, and Business Value (BV)

As we all know very well, the Product Backlog (PB) is very critical artifact in Scrum and Agile. PB should be the central repository of all the work that needs to be completed in a Project. We capture all the work (as we know as of Today) in the form of Epics, Features, and Stories. The Product Owner (PO) would then be responsible for providing the priorities on them. The PO may also decide to use the Business Value (BV) to help him/her prioritize the Product Backlog.

While there is no explicit formula for Business Value, the Product Owner should be making implicit decisions based on his/her experiences. While assigning BV to Features and Epics, the Product Owner may consider some of the following criteria:

* What the team has accomplished so far?
* What the team can complete within the Release Cycle?
* Complexities
* Dependencies
* Impediments
* Market Size
* Market Timing
* Opportunity Cost

If you 'zoom' into these criteria and look at them closely, you will realize the first few criteria drive the Priority and Sequencing of the Feature and Epics. The last three, Market Size, Market Timing, and Opportunity Cost, are the ones that will drive the Business Value.