Backlogs are the ordered list of items the team may take on in future sprints.

Modern customers expect short delivery cycles, and aren’t willing to wait for deliverables. In that environment, something that’s not getting done in the next sprint is the first candidate to drop when interruptions “blow up the sprint”.

Unfortunately this means that backlogs are where things go to die.

Maintaining the backlog requires the team to meet every sprint for at least an hour for “refinement”. This only pays off if the backlog items are worked on, which as stated above, is increasingly less likely. This is one of the reasons engineers tend to hate refinement meetings. They are tedious, and the return on time invested is horrible.

There is a better way.

Instead of a backlog of things that won’t get done, only keep track of stories that you’re going to do right now. When a story is created, assign it to a developer, and have the entire team weigh in on whether it should be done. Developers in turn, only start stories that their team considers worthy, and discard ones that don’t make the cut. In other words, continuously refine and plan, instead of waiting for the story to lose relevance.