Throughout the course of a project's lifecycle, you will need to clean up the project's backlog and perform a feature parity check. These steps should be followed to ensure that the overall project stays on track, is built to the original scope as developed during the Discovery process, and no user stories or features fall through the cracks during the development process.
- Technology: Azure Dev Ops, Microsoft Word, Your Web Browser of Choice
- Sphere: Project Coordination
- SDLC: Development
- Cadence: Regularly Throughout Project Lifecycle (best practices is once per sprint)
In order to successfully clean up a project's backlog and perform a feature parity check for a project you will need to review five different items against each other:
- The project's Business Requirement Doc (BRD)
- The project's backlog in Azure Dev Ops
- The project's mockups
- The project's Miro board ==(Insert a Miro Board sample here)==
- The project's QA environment
This can usually be found at http://PROJECTABBREVIATION-stg.clarityclient.com
==Moving from the beginning of the BRD to the end you should verify the following pieces of information for each User Story that appears in the BRD:== ==(Formatting issue here - can't move to the left and eliminate the bullet)==
Does this User Story and its associated tasks (including acceptance criteria) appear in the Azure Dev Ops backlog?
- If no, add it. If yes, move onto the next question.
Does the User Story and its associated tasks (including acceptance criteria) accurately reflect the feature as it is described in the BRD?
- If no, update it to reflect the BRD. If yes, move onto the next question.
Does the User Story and its associated tasks (including acceptance criteria) include the relevant images from the mockups to guide the developer's work on the item?
- If no, add them. If yes, move onto the next question.
Has the User Story and any of it associated tasks been completed (==is it in the "deployed to QA" status==)? IS DEPLOYED TO QA STILL CORRECT?
- If no, move on to the next User Story and its associated tasks and repeat the process starting at step 1. If yes, move on to the next question.
Does the QA environment accurately reflect the feature as described in the User Story and its associated tasks (including acceptance criteria and relevant mockups)?
- If no, add a bug ticket into the project's backlog to address whatever element of the feature does not match up with the description in the User Story and its associated tasks (including acceptance criteria and relevant mockups). If yes, move on to the next User Story and its associated tasks and repeat the process starting at step 1.
Tip: If you have any questions or concerns through this process, the Business Analyst assigned to the project is a great resource as they most likely had a hand in creating the original BRD for the project during the Discovery process.
Note: Any significant mismatches between the BRD and the backlog or the QA environment should be brought to leadership's attention so that a plan can be made to address any issues before they become a problem from the client's perspective.