Backlog

The backlog plays a very important role in keeping the project time plan and project costs under control. It also reduces the project's risks, improves the value of the solution for the business (user acceptance), and reduces the complexity of the solution by re-ordering and prioritizing user requirements.

A backlog enables step-by-step and business-priority-based delivery. From my own experience, I have observed that business users demand a functionality that often is not used later in the production system. This mostly happens because of the lack of experience that a "normal" business user has when it comes to implementing a CRM solution. Agile iterative methodology will provide the opportunity for the users to get to know the system, while more effectively gaining insight about the solution through an evolutionary and adaptive design.

The cost-value matrix, as we discovered in Chapter 3, Conceptualizing the CRM Design from Business Requirements, is an excellent tool...