Backlog size is inversely proportional to how often you talk to customers
bitbytebit.substack.com/p/the-size-of-your-backlog-is-inversely
What Jamie wrote
Several years ago I was talking with a product lead. This leader was making the case that his product needed more engineers. At one point in the conversation he attempted to justify this by exclaiming that his backlog was so large that it would take too long to work through. My reply was something like this — the size of your backlog is irrelevant to the amount of investment we should make, investment is driven on driving growth and customer engagement.
When I saw this headline I was like "yes"! But I love how Siddiqi goes into much more detail and further reasoning.
There is no point to having a large backlog because the bigger the backlog, the higher the unvalidated assumptions, and the lower the chance that it creates any customer value. I have made too many mistakes assuming that something is valuable, when nobody cares about it. A large backlog should be looked at with an extremely high degree of skepticism, as the size of your backlog is inversely proportional to how often you talk to customers.
Do the next thing. Test with customers. Repeat. Forever. ♾️