Documents the VSTS Product Backlog Hierarchy used for sophisticated products and portfolios of products, and how you can use the levels of the hierarchy and the work item types.
Written in 2016-2017:
This is part of a series of articles that I originally wrote in 2016-2017 and were only published on private internal company wikis. I am publishing them publicly for the first time in 2019, here on my blog.
Written for Microsoft’s VSTS:
Some content is written for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), as it existed in 2016-2017. VSTS was renamed to Azure DevOps in 2018 (WikiPedia).
Learn More:
VSTS Product Backlog Hierarchy:
This documents how we are using the VSTS work item hierarchy to provide the product backlog structure needed to align it to product strategy and organize and manage a sophisticated product development effort.
Since VSTS only supports a 4 level work item hierarchy, and sophisticated product requires 6 or more, we had to workaround this VSTS limitation by using nested work items. Specifically nesting the Epic level work item types to simulate the 2 additional levels needed – the Initiative level and the Theme level.
NOTE: The color coding below matches the colors used in VSTS.
Level | Purpose & Notes | ||||||||||||
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Product Managers are the Primary Responsible Person (PRP) for Initiative down to Epic levels (below) of the Backlog, in extensive collaborate with Product Owners and Scrum team. |
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1. | Initiative |
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2. | > | Theme |
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3. | > | Epic |
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Scrum Product Owners are the Primary Responsible Person (PRP) for Feature level (below) of the Backlog, in extensive collaborate with Product Managers and Scrum team. See Scrum Roles & Responsibilities to learn more. |
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4. | > | Feature |
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Scrum team members are the Primary Responsible Persons (PRP) for Work Story, Bug & Task levels (below) of the Backlog. | |||||||||||||
5. | > |
Work Story Type = User Story or Product Backlog Item – PBI) |
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6. | Task |
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5. | > | Bug |
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6. | Task |
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Out Of The Box VSTS Backlog Hierarchy:
This documents the out of the box VSTS Backlog work item hierarchy.
About VSTS Limitation:
VSTS is currently limited to a 4 level native hierarchy and it is not extensible. Microsoft has indicated to us that they would like to enhance VSTS to allow customers to extend and configure the work item hierarchy and more configurability over work item types, but they have not made that official nor provided a target date for these feature enhancements.
Microsoft VSTS Docs:
Links to Microsoft documentation related to this subject area.
- Organize your backlog
- Shows hierarchy – Organize your backlog > Add child items
- Broader discussion of work item hierarchies in the context of process templates: Choose a process in the Agile, CMMI, and Scrum section.
At A Glance – VSTS Backlog Work Item Hierarchy:
Here’s what the out of the box VSTS work item hierarchy looks like today in the current available version of VSTS (as of Dec 14, 2016).
Level | Purpose & Notes | ||||||||
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1. | > | Epic |
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2. | > | Feature | |||||||
3. | > | User Story |
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4. | Task |
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3. | > | Bug |
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4. | Task |
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