Silver Stripe Blog

Sometimes its pretty hard to prioritise. You can move features up and down the backlog, but you never really get a clear idea about the impact thats going to have. What does it mean if I put a feature at position 10 instead of 8? Will it make a difference?

Usually not. Except for one case – When position 8 would fit the feature into capacity for the next iteration, but position 10 just misses out on the next iteration. In this case, it could be very important indeed!

As Mike Cohn says, more interesting than what is in the next iteration is the knowledge of what is likely to fall just outside.

It is with this idea that Alistair Cockburn’s Iceberg List has been implemented in Silver Catalyst.

That’s a rather fancy name for a pretty simple concept.

Iceberg List in Silver Catalyst

The screenshot you see below is from the backlog prioritisation screen in Silver Catalyst.

Silver Catalyst has cut this backlog into two parts, separated by a red line (the “water line”). The features above the line are expected to be scheduled in the next iteration (this is the “tip of the iceberg”). Everything below the line will miss the next iteration (the “bulk of the iceberg”).

The line is calculated by looking at the average velocity of the team, in this case 48, and counting out 48 points of features from the top of the backlog.

The Iceberg List forces product owners to understand the implications of prioritisation. This is because there is no way to stuff more features above the red line. If you move a feature above the red line, then another feature will be pushed down below the red line.

In the screenshot above, the 5 point story has been moved above the red line, causing two other features to be pushed below the line.

Although a very simple idea, the iceberg list can make visible the impact of prioritisation in order to drive better conversations on relative feature value and importance.