Conflicts between product backlogs happen all the time. Team A will approach Team B with a high priority request to stop work in progress and implement a new feature. Often this request is phrased as an emergency and must be addressed immediately. Usually there is some resitance from Team B. Team B will have a roadmap and dropping everything to pick up Team A's request will foprce them to re-arrange priorities. In many organizations, a story that is high priority for Team A really won't be a priority at all for the second team. Often a shared services team will be approached multiple times each sprtin with an emergency from client teams. This leads to conflicts and often leads the shared services team not getting the time to apporpriately plan and implement long-lived services.
Conflicts of this kind don't need to cause friction, bad software and missed deadlines. Product owners and team leads can prevent this happening and plan better for the future. Management needs to reward the right behaviors - Teams that plan ahead and
Let's take a look at the process in action. Conflict between backlogs can come up for many reasons. New business opportunities, changes made be external parties, results of sales calls or plain old poor planning.
Step 1: Identify the dependency
It may seem like common sense to verify that the feature being asked for, and the goal that is trying to be acheived are the same, but once so-called emergency mode is activated common sense often gets thrown out the window. There are many times that nice to have features or extras will be demanded and treated as requirments by teams that are too overwhelmed to