A Backlog of Good Stories Is Still the Wrong Backlog.
Amazing Stories 1 taught you to write one that a team can build. This one is about the two hundred behind it: which are worth doing at all, what order they go in, and how anyone can tell.
Every Story Is Justified. The Product Still Isn't.
A backlog where every item is well-written and individually defensible is the most common way a team ships a year of work nobody needed. Nothing in it is wrong. The list is.
This is the second workshop, and it starts where the first one stopped: not how to write a story, but how to decide which stories are the product.
- Alignment — how a backlog item connects to something the business actually said it wanted
- Value, stated in a way you could be wrong about
- Sequencing: why order is a bigger lever than estimates
- Splitting and sizing, from the first workshop's tips onward
- Backlog structure that survives being handed to someone else
You leave able to look at your own backlog and say why the top ten are the top ten.
In development
No dates yet. Join the wait list to hear when they open.
What you'll learn
- How a backlog item earns its place, and what to do with the ones that can't
- Writing value so it is falsifiable rather than aspirational
- Sequencing for learning, for risk, and for dependency — and why those disagree
- Slicing large work without shipping half a thing
- Sizing that informs a decision instead of decorating a spreadsheet
- Structuring a backlog so someone else can pick it up and understand the plan
- Reading a backlog critically — including, especially, your own
Who this is for
- Product Owners past the mechanics and stuck on the priorities
- Anyone who finished Amazing Stories 1 and wants the rest of it
- Managers accountable for whether the work was the right work
- Scrum Masters who have to run a refinement that reaches a decision
What you get
- A recorded, self-paced workshop, taken on your clock
- The Student Handbook, with the exercises
- A graded checkpoint
- A certificate of completion
- One year of access from the day you enrol
The fine print
What’s covered
Not yet recorded. This is the shape it will take, and it is here so you can tell whether it is the workshop you want:
Alignment
Focus: What the work is for
- Tracing an item back to something the business said
- The items that trace back to nothing
- Goals a backlog can actually be measured against
Value
Focus: Stated so it can be wrong
- Value as a claim rather than an adjective
- Whose value, and when it arrives
- The costs that never make it onto the card
Sequencing
Focus: The lever bigger than estimates
- Ordering for learning, risk, and dependency
- What to do when those three disagree
- Splitting and sizing in service of the order
Recorded and self-paced when it exists, like Amazing Stories 1.
Training formats
Self-paced video, taken whenever you like. There are no scheduled sessions and nothing to attend.
The Student Handbook as a download, with the exercises.
Buying for a team? Set the licence count at checkout and assign each one to a person afterwards.
Risk-free guarantee
Nothing to guarantee yet — this one isn't built. Join the wait list and you'll hear when it is, before it reaches the catalog.
Prerequisites
Amazing Stories 1, or equivalent practice. This workshop assumes you can already write a story a team can build, and spends its time on which stories to write.
Frequently asked questions
When can I take this?
It isn't written yet. This page exists so you can say you want it — everything above is what the workshop will be.
Tell me you're interested and I'll write to you when it has a date and a price.
Do I need Amazing Stories 1 first?
Practically, yes. This one assumes you can already write a story a team can build, and spends its whole time on which stories are worth writing and in what order.
If you learned that somewhere else, you don't need to buy the first workshop to take the second.
How is this different from Amazing Stories 1?
The first is about one story: what it is for, who it is about, and fourteen specific fixes for writing one your team can build.
This is about the other two hundred — whether they are worth doing, what order they go in, and how the backlog holds together as a plan.