Deck

Prioritize Your Product Backlog with Customer Evidence

Pick the top opportunities from a backlog ranked on customer evidence, with a reason, a risk, and quotes for each pick. Run it in Deck or with your AI agent.

By Matt TeixeiraUpdated

Run it in Deck
Time to Run
30 min
Uses
Opportunity Backlog,Evidence
You Get
Backlog Prioritization Table
Run It
In Deck or with your agent

How Do You Prioritize a Product Backlog with Customer Evidence?

Start from a backlog that is already ranked by customer evidence, not by who asked loudest. Open the top candidates, set aside anything already in progress, and read the quotes behind the finalists. Move an item up or down only for your goal, your target segment, or work in flight, and write down why.

Why Backlog Prioritization Turns into Opinion

Someone asks what you should build next quarter, and the answer depends on who is in the room. The backlog is a long list of requests with no shared measure. Scores like RICE get filled in by gut feel, and the reasons behind a pick are forgotten by the next planning cycle.

How Deck Ranks the Backlog on Evidence

Deck builds the Opportunity Backlog from your customer feedback and ranks it with an impact score, sentiment, insight count, and trend. Each opportunity keeps the insights behind it, so a pick comes with quotes, not just a number. You start from Deck's rank and only change the order for a reason you can state in one sentence.

How to Prioritize Your Product Backlog in Deck

Run it yourself in Deck, or hand it to your AI agent. Same steps, same result.

  1. 01

    Set the Decision Frame

    Decide how many picks you need, three by default. Choose which customers count, all or one segment, which category tab, and any goal or limit, such as retention this quarter or no large rebuilds.

  2. 02

    Open the Ranked Backlog

    Go to Build → Opportunity Backlog and pick the category tab. Read each row's Rank, Impact, Sentiment, Insights, and Trend. The list shows items with at least three pieces of evidence.

  3. 03

    Open the Top Candidates

    Open the top 8 to 10 items in rank order. The Overview tab shows the executive-brief summary, impact and sentiment, and segment scope. The Insights & Subthemes tab shows the evidence.

  4. 04

    Set Aside Work Already in Progress

    On each candidate, open the ⋯ menu and choose Related Work Items. If a linked Project is in progress or completed, it is not a new pick. List it under Already in progress.

  5. 05

    Rank the Finalists and Write the Reasons

    Read two customer quotes for each of the strongest three to five. Keep Deck's order unless your goal, segment, or work in progress says otherwise, and say why in one sentence. Write each reason in the customer's words.

  6. 06

    Act on the Picks

    From the ⋯ menu, choose Create Initiative for a larger outcome or Create Project for focused delivery. Deck links the new item back to the opportunity. Archive Opportunity removes a stale item from the default views.

Backlog Prioritization Template

backlog-prioritization-table.md
## Decision frame
- Picks: [3]  Customers: [All / Segment name]  Tab: [Category]  Goal: [e.g. retention this quarter]
## Picks
Pick | Deck rank | Impact  | Insights     | Trend                     | Reason (customer's words) | Risk   | Link       
-----|-----------|---------|--------------|---------------------------|---------------------------|--------|------------
1    | [#]       | [score] | [Deck count] | [Rising / Flat / Falling] | "[quote]"                 | [risk] | [Deck link]
2    | [#]       | [score] | [Deck count] | [trend]                   | "[quote]"                 | [risk] | [Deck link]
3    | [#]       | [score] | [Deck count] | [trend]                   | "[quote]"                 | [risk] | [Deck link]
## Changes to Deck's order
- [Opportunity] moved [up / down] because [goal / segment / work in progress]
## Already in progress
- [Opportunity] — [linked Project and status]
## Thin evidence
- [Opportunity] — [Deck count] insights
## Not in the segment
- [Opportunity]
Plain text. Pastes into Docs, Notion, or your agent.21 lines

Frequently Asked Questions

Deck's background analysis builds the backlog from your customer feedback. New opportunities appear after the backlog job runs. Until your first one is ready, the page shows “Your first backlog is on its way.”

You can, but the agent does not invent its own weighted score. If you ask for one, it uses only Deck's inputs and labels the result as its own, not Deck's.

The default list hides items with fewer than three pieces of evidence. The agent can include them, but lists them apart as thin evidence.

It is soft-archived. It leaves the default backlog views, but the record is not deleted. MCP cannot restore it, so the agent asks for an explicit yes for every archive.

No. Deck tools do not create Linear or Jira items. To plan delivery, turn the pick into a Deck Project and link it from there.

Yes. With Deck MCP connected, paste the prompt on this page. The agent reads the backlog, opens the candidates, checks linked Projects, and writes the ranked table. It asks before any write, such as scoping a pick to a segment or starting an initiative.