Agree what the scores mean, see where perspectives differ and discuss the work that needs clarification. Build shared understanding before choosing the backlog priorities and release plan.
Align your backlog prioritiesDefine the outcome, rating scale and scope for each criterion. Assign evaluations to teammates with the relevant expertise.
Use Criteria Alignment and Users Alignment to inspect score variation. Spend discussion time on the assumptions that affect the decision.
Custom roles is linked to backlog issue ENG-142. Sam scores its customer value highly, Alex sees less benefit for small accounts and Jo is thinking about a narrower launch. The scores expose different assumptions about who the feature serves.
┌─ FROM AGREEMENT TO A PLAN ───────┐ │ work access → roles UI → QA │ │ dates set in Gantt │ │ dependencies Finish to Start │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ Review owners and timing │ │ Agree the release window │ │ Announce after actual release │ └──────────────────────────────────┘
Choose the product outcome you are evaluating. Explain what customer value, impact, effort or risk means for this backlog, and what each rating represents.
For Custom roles, define the target customer and the launch scope before asking for a value estimate. Use consistent units for effort, such as person-months, and configure the formula that combines your criteria into Total Score.
Assign customer-facing criteria to people with customer context and effort criteria to people who understand delivery. A criterion can have multiple evaluators; each teammate can evaluate more than one criterion.
Start from a framework such as RICE or WSJF, then review the definitions and configuration together.
RICE framework → · WSJF framework → · Assign users and criteria →
| Issue | Value | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Custom roles | 32% | 45% |
| SSO | 78% | 82% |
Start the discussion with the red and orange cells. In the product, inspect individual scores behind the report percentage.
Criteria Alignment shows score variation for each issue and criterion. Sort by alignment to bring the least aligned work to the top, or filter for a chosen alignment range.
Inspect a cell to see the individual evaluations behind it. Users Alignment gives another view: how a teammate’s scores compare with the rest of the team across issues.
In the sample, Custom roles has contrasting value and effort judgments. Ask what each evaluator assumed about customers, scope and technical work before choosing a final estimate.
The default report ranges mark 0–35% red, 35–50% orange and 50–100% gray. Thresholds can be customized separately for each report. Higher alignment describes closer evaluations; it does not prove the assumptions are correct.
┌─ CUSTOM ROLES · VALUE SCORES ────┐ │ Sam 5 · enterprise needs │ │ Alex 2 · small accounts │ │ Jo 4 · launch scope │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ Different audience assumptions │ │ Review feedback and scope │ │ Core roles for paid workspaces │ └──────────────────────────────────┘
Bring customer feedback and requirements into the discussion. For Custom roles, the team agrees to evaluate core roles for paid workspaces; engineering revisits the effort estimate for that scope.
Evaluators can re-score the issue in its task card. Criterion facilitators can review and manually edit Final Scores for their assigned criteria, under your permission settings. Review the resulting ranking with the configured scoring model before deciding what to take into work.
Keep the scope and reasoning with the task so the team can revisit the decision when evidence changes. Shared priorities can still contain uncertainty and different individual scores.
Organize the customer evidence → · Review impact, effort and backlog scores →
┌─ REVIEW BACKLOG PRIORITIES ──────┐ │ Recalculate configured model │ │ Review ranking and trade-offs │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ selected Custom roles │ │ issue ENG-142 │ │ scope core roles + access │ │ Team agrees what to plan next │ └──────────────────────────────────┘
Agree who contributes, which inputs are essential and how the final result will be reviewed.
Choose the evaluators for each criterion and the facilitator responsible for its Final Score. Make that responsibility visible before scoring starts.
Configure board evaluators →Required for scoring blocks Total Score until every required criterion has a value. One estimator score, supported custom-field value or manually set Final Score can satisfy a required criterion; it does not require every teammate to submit.
Configure required criteria →Review red and orange report cells, inspect the underlying scores and ask about the assumptions. Revisit the evaluation when scope or evidence changes.
Review team alignment →The team selects the clarified Custom roles work. Plan access-model changes, the roles interface and release QA with dates, owners and dependencies in Gantt.
Review what fits and what must happen first. If an upstream task takes longer, Finish to Start dependencies can shift later work; the team reviews the release window again.
Choose which ideas to communicate on the public roadmap. Share the reviewed plan with stakeholders, then publish an approved release update when the feature is available.
Alignment reports do not schedule tasks or publish the roadmap. Use the agreed decision as the input for planning and customer communication.
Plan dates and dependencies → · Communicate roadmap progress → · Publish reviewed release notes →
┌─ REVIEW THE RELEASE PLAN ──────┐ │ scope Custom roles │ │ QA end Oct 30 │ │ target Nov 2 · planned │ ├────────────────────────────────┤ │ Team reviews the new window │ │ Share updated scope + timing │ │ Publish after actual release │ └────────────────────────────────┘
Explore the conversation, independent evaluation and meeting rhythm behind a plan the team understands.
Define a few criteria, collect evaluations and review one disagreement together. Use the clarified decision to choose your next backlog priorities and release plan.
Align your backlog prioritiesFollow the Alignment guide → · See the full feedback-to-release workflow →