I don’t like using the term “empowered” because it’s ambiguous.

Empowered to do what?

• Are you empowered to expand your product internationally

• Empowered to build a whole new business within your current org?

• Build a new brand under a parent company?

Of course, empowerment doesn’t mean “do whatever you like” but therein lies the question:

What exactly are you empowered to do?

From my experience, there are two common reasons why I see product backlogs become long and unmanageable.

​A lack of strategy​ and, therefore, backlogs become a dumping ground for any and every idea.

Working big, breaking down big solutions, rather than breaking down the outcome (refer to ​my last post​)

When I've helped organisations become more outcome/product orientated, more often than not, I've moved them away from 'epics' and 'user stories' and towards things like one-pagers, opportunities, hypotheses, etc. Why? Because they’re are better tools for facilitating outcome thinking and experimentation.