## How Can We Keep the Active Product Backlog Focused While Preserving Historical Context? Moving items to another area with notes on why they were moved helps with future strategy discussions while keeping the active backlog focused. >[!anecdote] >A friend once told me how their parents kept their house from piling up with unused toys. They’d quietly move a few toys into a trunk. If the kids didn’t miss them, those toys went to Goodwill; if the kids asked about them, they came back out. </br> The Product Backlog works the same way. Moving old items into an archive—while keeping a note about why they were moved—helps keep the active backlog lean. And just like those toys, if no one misses the items, they probably weren’t that valuable in the first place. ## Works Consulted 1. [000267 Battling the Bloated Product Backlog](https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/battling-bloated-product-backlog) | Scrum.org | Accessed 25 Jul. 2025. ## Connections follows:: [[3.2b Episodic Reviews Prevent Stale and Irrelevant Backlog Items]] topics:: [[Backlog Refinement]], [[Focus]], [[Product Backlog]] Better Alternative | [[3.2c Deleting or Moving Items Keeps the Backlog Relevant]] -> I prefer deleting items—or removing them in most tools—rather than moving them to another backlog. I’d only keep them elsewhere if leadership’s fear of missing out was too strong. Items can always be restored if truly needed, but in practice, that rarely happens. ![[Footer]]