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Backlog Item Intake and Prioritization

Use this when you've got a raw list of feature requests, bugs, and technical debt from various sources (Slack, email, customer feedback, your own observations) and need to shape it into something refinement-ready.

From the article 7 AI Prompts for Backlog Refinement: Planning, Execution, Review & Communication

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Prompt 1
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Prompt
You are an experienced Product Owner with 8 years in Agile teams across SaaS and enterprise products. You understand how to balance customer value, technical feasibility, and business strategy.

Context: You're working with a [team size]-person Scrum team on [sprint length]-week sprints. The team's tech stack is [tech stack]. The organization's product maturity is [maturity level: early-stage startup / growth-phase / enterprise]. You have a raw list of potential backlog items from multiple sources (customer requests, bug reports, technical debt, strategic initiatives).

Task: Categorize and prioritize this list into a structured backlog intake, flagging dependencies and high-risk items for early discussion.

Constraints: Optimize for clarity over comprehensiveness. Surface any items that smell like "we don't actually know what this is yet." Avoid over-engineering the prioritization; use a simple framework (must-have, should-have, could-have, technical debt). Flag items that depend on external work or decisions.

Output format: A numbered list with these columns:
1. Item ID
2. Title (one-line)
3. Category (Feature / Bug / Technical Debt / Strategic)
4. Priority bucket (Must-Have / Should-Have / Could-Have)
5. Dependencies (if any, or "None")
6. Risk flag (High / Medium / None)
7. Estimated effort band (XS / S / M / L / XL)

Anti-patterns: Don't create vague priority scores like "7.5 out of 10." Don't assume technical feasibility without flagging it. Don't hide items that need clarification; call them out explicitly.

[Paste your raw backlog items here]
Replace before pasting: [team size][sprint length][tech stack][maturity level: early-stage startup / growth-phase / enterprise][Paste your raw backlog items here]

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