How to Let Jira Ruin Your Process #4: The Infinite Backlog of Doom®

One common anti-pattern I’ve run into is what I call the “Infinite Backlog of Doom®”

Every idea, every bug, every feature, every story gets tossed in and never sees the light of day again. I’ve seen Jira backlogs with hundreds—even thousands—of items just sitting there.

⭕ Why does this happen?

Because we don’t want to say no.

When I was a young father, one of my kids would ask me to do something totally reasonable, like play on the floor. If I knew I couldn’t—because dinner needed cooking or we were about to leave—I’d dodge with “in a little while.”

My wife would ask, “Why don’t you just say ‘no’?”

The real reason? I didn’t want the argument.

Similarly, in development, putting an item on the backlog is an easy way to avoid debate over its real value.

⭕ So, what’s the problem?

1. False Hope: Requestors think their item will get done someday. But when you’re already 100 tasks in the board, item 101 is never happening. Be honest

2. Cognitive Overload: A backlog with hundreds of items is impossible to meaningfully prioritize. Our brains can only handle so many “chunks” at once. This is the real kicker for the dev team and product manager.

⭕ How to Solve It

🔹 Purge the Backlog: If it’s not doable in the next couple of sprints, delete it. Really. If no one complains later, it wasn’t a priority.

🔹 Reject Early and Often: Don’t even accept a task that won’t fit into the near-term roadmap.

🔹 Replace, Don’t Just Add: If something absolutely must go in, decide which existing item won’t get done to free up the needed resources.

#Jira #Agile #ProjectManagement #SoftwareDevelopment