How product managers can avoid becoming backlog managers
Instead of sorting through clutter, there's another approach.
The team backlog can be a powerful tool for focusing effort and ensuring the most important work gets done first—but without regular grooming, it turns into a dumping ground. Too often, product managers end up maintaining an overflowing backlog instead of driving product strategy. When that happens, teams waste time sorting through clutter rather than building meaningful features.
Our team has worked across different organizations, varying in size from 5 to 1,000 developers, and seen firsthand how messy backlogs slow teams down. A backlog should only contain work that’s ready for execution—fully specified, with mockups if needed, a clear understanding of customer value, and no open questions that would block progress. That’s why we built Atono’s Story refinement area—to keep the backlog clean, our priorities sharp, and our strategy on track.
Let’s explore why unfinished ideas don’t belong in your backlog and how a regular refinement process keeps teams focused on delivering value.
The backlog problem
If you’ve ever opened your team’s backlog and felt overwhelmed, you’re not alone.
Many teams struggle with:
Bloated backlogs full of half-baked ideas that may never get built.
Disorganized priorities, making it unclear what to focus on next.
Endless grooming sessions that feel like admin work instead of strategic discussions.
Frequent rework because stories weren’t sufficiently defined before development started.
A reactive approach—pulling in whatever story is next in the queue instead of continually focusing on the highest-impact work.
A cluttered backlog turns product managers into project administrators. The more noise in the backlog, the harder it is to execute on strategy.
How Atono keeps backlogs focused
We don’t use our backlogs as idea repositories. Instead, we built a separate Story refinement area to:
Capture ideas separately – Feature requests and suggestions go into refinement first, not directly into the team backlog.
Prioritize with strategy in mind – Ensure ideas align with the product direction before they reach the team backlog.
Define and scope before committing – Developers, designers, and product managers collaborate to refine work before adding it to the backlog.
Maintain a lean backlog – Only clear, actionable, and valuable stories make it in. Too much inventory isn’t agile. A healthy backlog has enough work to keep the team moving for the next 1-3 months—without the overhead of maintaining stories that might never get built.
How Story refinement works in Atono
Atono’s Story refinement follows four structured steps:
Idea – Capture all new ideas, requests, and suggestions in one place.
Refinement – Collaborate across product, design, and engineering to turn ideas into well-defined stories.
Ready for assignment – Move finalized, actionable stories that align with product goals here, where they’re queued for assignment to a team.
Won’t do – Close out ideas that don’t fit current priorities or strategy, keeping them documented.
By following this process, only well-defined, valuable stories reach the team backlog—reducing clutter and backlog churn. That means less admin work and more focus on high-priority development.
Role-based backlog management
Beyond refinement, optional roles and permissions in Atono help teams focus on strategy instead of backlog maintenance. These roles can be helpful for teams that want more structure as they grow:
Product Managers oversee product themes and ensure work aligns with broader strategy before entering a team backlog.
Backlog Owners manage and prioritize upcoming work, ensuring stories are clear and ready for execution.
Defining these roles helps teams keep backlogs structured and aligned with product goals, offering additional support as teams scale or their needs evolve.
When should you consider a refinement process?
If any of these sound familiar, a refinement space could help:
Does your team often start work on stories that aren’t fully defined?
Do you spend too much time clarifying requirements after development begins?
Are there stories in your backlog that have been sitting there for months (or years)?
Do stakeholders constantly add work to the backlog without prioritization?
Atono’s Story refinement area helps teams stay focused and move faster.
Questions you might be asking
1. Isn’t a refinement space just another backlog?
In Atono, Story refinement is the product backlog, but it functions differently from a team backlog—so we use separate terms to avoid confusion.
The product backlog is where ideas, requests, and potential features are captured. Team backlogs, on the other hand, contain only clear, committed work that’s ready for development. Story refinement helps teams turn raw ideas into actionable stories—the only kind that should make it onto a team backlog.
That separation matters because Story refinement is about shaping the work, not planning delivery. You can’t size or schedule a story until it’s on a team backlog—those decisions depend on the team’s velocity and how they work. Refinement gets the story ready; the team backlog is where it becomes actionable.
2. Doesn’t this add extra process and slow us down?
It actually makes teams faster by preventing wasted effort. Poorly defined work leads to misalignment and rework. Refinement ensures every story is clear before development starts.
3. Can’t we just discuss stories during sprint planning?
Sprint planning should be about committing to work, not figuring out what the work actually is. A separate refinement process keeps planning focused and efficient.
4. What if we don’t have time to refine every story?
You don’t need to refine every story in the product backlog right away—just the ones you’re likely to build soon. Every story needs some refinement before it’s implemented, but that can happen closer to when the team picks it up.
Refinement isn’t about perfecting every detail. It’s about anticipating questions and writing clear acceptance criteria. Product owners and teams can work together to find the right balance between specificity and efficiency.
5. How do we prevent refinement from becoming a bottleneck?
Set clear criteria for when a story is ‘ready’ and don’t overthink every detail. If a story sits in refinement too long, it probably isn’t important enough to pursue.
A smarter approach to backlog management
A well-managed backlog isn’t about tracking every idea—it helps teams focus on delivering the highest-value work for customers at the right time. Atono’s Story refinement area gives teams space to prepare ideas before committing them to execution. When combined with role-based backlog management, it ensures product managers focus on strategy instead of administration.
By helping teams keep their backlogs lean and their refinement process structured, we enable them to stay focused, ship better products, and avoid backlog overload.
If your backlog feels unmanageable, it’s time to rethink your approach. Atono’s Story refinement area can help.