How do I separate backlog from new issues?

Constantin Tanno June 3, 2012

I'm a product manager at a small software company. Since I'm the product manager, I manage the backlog and backlogged issues are assigned to me. However, people also assign a new issues to me (could be a new bug, a user story that's been completed that I need to product owner accept, etc.). When someone assigns a new issue to me, I triage it and either:

  • Do something about the issue, fix it, update it and assign it to someone else, etc.
  • Close the issue, it's already fixed, doesn't need to be fixed, is not an issue, etc.
  • Determine that it's something that we need to do, but are not going to address now, in which case it needs to be put on the backlog and prioritized accordingly.

My question is, how do I easily separate out issues assigned to me because I need to look at them, versus issues that I have looked at and put on the backlog? Since backlog issues are assigned to me as well (IMO correct since I am the product owner, they should be assigned to me, since I'm managing the backlog), I can't easly separate them out.

I've considered:

  • Allowing backlogged items to not be assigned to anyone (our current project config does not allow unassigned issues): okay, but I'd rather not enable that config, since I want issues to always have an owner.
  • Use a label/tag for items I've backlogged: will work, cumbersome, and doesn't prevent others from putting that tag on an issue before I've reviewed it.
  • Create a new "version" for backlogged items: might work, but I don't really want to mess with that
  • Create a custom field for backlogged items: again, seems like a hassle.

Are there other ideas? Has anyone else run into this issue? Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks.

2 answers

0 votes
Drew Liscomb June 4, 2012

I seem to remember assigning all 'new' issues to a separate user name, "New Issues".

You then address these by claiming ownership and setting the status, thus only issues you've already categorized are assigned to you.

Денис CSAT October 5, 2018

But that eats one user license...

0 votes
saraponga June 3, 2012

We have a similar problem at my company and tried to solve this by introducing another status called "Backlog", which we placed between "Open" and "In Progress". That makes it very clear where an issue is in the workflow.

A new status doesn't completely solve our problem though so we are still looking for a better solution, see also https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/49938/how-can-i-transition-and-modify-rank-of-an-issue-in-one-go.

Thomas Schlegel
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 3, 2012
we do exactly the same, put the 'waiting issues' in a separate status

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer