Builders usually have no shortage of technically legitimate work.
There is always another bug, refactor, feature, workflow or cleanup task.
That makes the backlog a very comfortable place to retreat when the harder problem is outside the codebase.
If the real constraint is positioning, distribution, sales or market demand, shipping another feature may improve the product without improving the business.
The useful discipline is separating "valuable engineering work" from "the current bottleneck."
They are not always the same thing.
Top comments (0)