How do I best manage customer feature requests alongside the development team?

[Nora S]

I am in the process of moving management of customer feature requests to Jira, and wondering what would be the best way to go about it (currently we are using an excel spreadsheet).

We already have a development Team that uses Jira, and they are involved in the weekly product meetings during which we discuss the features suggested by customers that are to be approved for development. 

My question is would it be better if we used the same backlog; ie have two projects using the same backlog. Or would it be better to have separate backlogs? My concern is that we do need to move tasks from the feature requests section to the existing development section, however on the other hand I don't want to overflow the existing backlog.

Would be happy if anyone has any insights regarding the pros and cons of the two options. Thanks!

[Jack Brickey]

Editorial...

if you have one team you should have one Backlog. Having multiple backlogs creates a misrepresentation of the work that lies ahead and could lead to overbooking or favoritism to one Backlog over the other. If you are using scrum you want to plan sprints from all sources of requested features, defects, etc. 

[Nora S]

Thank you so much for your quick reply Jack :)

Will definitely take this under advisement.