☕ SharePoint Tip #19 — Backlog Prioritisation: deciding what to build first
Good morning! Here is your 15-minute SharePoint tip for today.
Day 19 | Week 4 — Product Owner Mastery
Backlog Prioritisation for SharePoint
A SharePoint backlog can quickly become a long list of requests with no clear order. Today’s tip gives you three practical techniques to prioritise with confidence.
Technique 1 — MoSCoW
Categorise every backlog item into:
- Must have — without this, the platform is not fit for purpose
- Should have — important, but there is a workaround today
- Could have — nice to have, lower value
- Won’t have (this time) — explicitly deferred
For a new SharePoint environment, Must Haves are typically: correct permissions, document libraries per department, version history enabled, and basic search working. Everything else is Should or Could.
Technique 2 — Impact vs Effort matrix
Draw a 2×2 grid:
| Low effort | High effort | |
|---|---|---|
| High impact | Quick wins — do first | Major projects — plan carefully |
| Low impact | Fill-ins — do when spare capacity | Time wasters — avoid |
Quick wins are your best friends as a new Product Owner. They build credibility fast.
SharePoint quick win examples:
- Enabling version history on all libraries (30 minutes, high user impact)
- Setting the default sharing link to "Specific people" (5 minutes, major security improvement)
- Adding a Department metadata column to the main library (1 hour, transforms searchability)
Technique 3 — WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)
Used in SAFe. Score each item on:
- Business value (1–10)
- Time criticality (1–10, how much does delay cost?)
- Risk reduction (1–10)
WSJF score = (Business value + Time criticality + Risk reduction) ÷ Effort
Highest WSJF score = do first. This rewards small, high-value items over large, medium-value ones.
Try it today (5 minutes)
Take 5 items from your current or imagined SharePoint backlog. Score each one on impact (1–5) and effort (1–5). Plot them on the 2×2 mentally. Which items are your quick wins? Which are your time wasters? This exercise takes under 10 minutes and gives you a prioritised list to act on.
As a Product Owner
Communicate your prioritisation rationale clearly to stakeholders. When you say no (or not yet) to a request, explain which technique you used and why other items ranked higher. Transparency in prioritisation builds stakeholder trust far more than trying to please everyone.
See you tomorrow at 6:00 AM with Tip #20 — KPIs and Adoption Metrics for SharePoint!