What is Product Backlog? — UK Software Development Guide
Direct Answer
A Product Backlog is a prioritised list of everything the product team wants to build — user stories, bug fixes, technical improvements, and research tasks. It is owned by the Product Owner and is the single source of truth for planned product development. Items at the top of the backlog are the most important and ready to build; items at the bottom may be rough ideas or low-priority improvements.
Product-backlog in the UK
The Product Backlog is a key artefact in UK agile software development. For fixed-price agile contracts, the backlog agreed during Technical Discovery defines exactly what will be built — preventing scope disputes. The GDS Service Standard expects continuous backlog refinement based on user research. UK GDPR implication: the backlog should include user stories for data subject rights (erasure, access, portability) as first-class items, not compliance afterthoughts.
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