A survey on product backlog change management and requirement traceability in agile (Scrum)

Product backlog comprises the outline of desired functionality in a prioritized order in Scrum. Scrum is an iterative, collaborative, and flexible process to develop a software product. Scrum projects welcome changes at any stage of a project, but such changes significantly affect project management activities and quality, including time and budget overrun. These changes also compromise architectural integrity. The objectives of this research were: 1) to determine how product backlog changes are managed by practitioners in Scrum projects, and 2) to explore the perception of practitioners on the use of requirement traceability for product backlog and project risk management during requirement volatility in Scrum. In this research, we conducted a survey among Scrum practitioners and obtained 89 complete responses through our electronic questionnaire. The practitioners identified the reasons of backlog changes and recorded the changed elements. Majority of practitioners recorded modified requirement as “new requirement,” but they made changes in the original product backlog. The practitioners tended to agree that requirement traceability was helpful in managing product backlog and minimizing project risk. However, majority of the respondents pointed out the lack of specific requirement traceability method for Scrum.