Monday.com offers product managers a flexible, visual workspace to manage backlogs without the rigid structure of dedicated PM tools. Its customizable boards, automation features, and integration capabilities make it an excellent choice for teams that want control over their workflow while keeping costs reasonable. Whether you're running a lean startup or managing a department within a larger organization, Monday.com can be configured to match your backlog management process.
Why Monday.com
Monday.com's flexibility makes it ideal for product backlog management because you're not forced into anyone else's methodology. You can create custom columns for your specific prioritization framework, whether that's using RICE scoring, MoSCoW prioritization, or your own internal system. The platform handles status tracking, timeline management, and stakeholder communication in a single interface. Teams appreciate that Monday.com works well for backlogs of any size, from 50 items to 5,000, without becoming unwieldy.
The visual nature of Monday.com's board view helps product teams see the big picture of what's coming. Unlike spreadsheets that become difficult to navigate, or overly specialized tools that enforce rigid structures, Monday.com lets you build exactly what your team needs. You can also easily share your backlog view with executives, designers, and engineers without requiring them to learn a new tool.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Create Your Backlog Board and Define Core Columns
Start by creating a new board in Monday.com for your product backlog. Click the "Create Board" button and select "Blank Board" as your starting template. Name it something clear like "Product Backlog" or "Feature Backlog." You'll immediately see a default column structure with "Name" and "Status" columns.
Now define your core columns. Keep the "Name" column for your feature or initiative title. Add a "Status" column with values like "Backlog," "In Planning," "Ready for Development," "In Progress," and "Done." Create a "Priority" column using a Number field with values 1-5 (where 1 is highest). Add a "Description" column using the Long Text field to capture the problem statement, user need, or acceptance criteria.
Include columns for "Size/Effort" (using Number for story points or T-shirt sizes), "Target Release" (using Date field), and "Owner" (using Person field). Create a "Value" column using Number to track business impact. Consider adding a "Notes" column for implementation details or dependencies. The key is including only columns that your team will actually use in weekly backlog refinement sessions.
2. Set Up Custom Fields for Your Prioritization Method
The prioritization system you choose will define how your backlog gets managed. If you're using the RICE framework, create columns for "Reach," "Impact," "Confidence," and "RICE Score." Use Number fields for the first three columns, then create a formula column for the RICE Score. Click the column type dropdown and select "Formula," then enter: ({Reach} {Impact} {Confidence}) / 100 to automatically calculate scores as your team updates individual values.
Alternatively, if you prefer MoSCoW prioritization, create a "Priority Tier" column with single select options: "Must Have," "Should Have," "Could Have," and "Won't Have." For teams using custom scoring, create whatever columns match your framework. Document your calculation method in a board description or pinned item so new team members understand how your backlog is ordered.
Make sure your prioritization columns are accessible during backlog refinement. Use Monday.com's automation features to highlight changes. Go to "Automations" in the board menu and create a rule that changes the background color of any row where the Priority value changes to red, drawing attention to items that have been reprioritized.
3. Organize by Status and Create Swimlanes
Switch your board view to the Group By feature to organize items by status. At the top of your board, click "Group By" and select your "Status" column. This automatically organizes all backlog items into swimlanes: Backlog, In Planning, Ready for Development, In Progress, and Done. This gives everyone an immediate visual understanding of where items stand.
Within your Backlog swimlane, items should be ordered by priority. You can drag and drop items to reorder them, and Monday.com will maintain this custom order. Items at the top of the Backlog are your next candidates for development. The In Planning swimlane contains items your team is actively refining, breaking down into smaller tasks, and estimating. Ready for Development items have been fully specified and are waiting for engineering capacity.
For larger teams, consider creating a separate board just for the active sprint or current release, then using this main backlog board for everything 2-3 releases out. This prevents your primary backlog from becoming overwhelming. You can use board links to connect related items across boards.
4. Build Views for Different Stakeholders
Monday.com allows you to create multiple views of the same board data. Create a "Timeline" view by clicking the "+" next to your current view tabs and selecting "Timeline." Set the start date to your "Target Release" column and leave end date blank. This shows your product leadership when items are scheduled and helps identify capacity planning issues.
Create a "Table" view for your engineering team, showing columns relevant to development: Name, Description, Size/Effort, Owner, and Status. Hide your Value and Reach columns since engineers don't need those for their work. Create a "Card" view focused on the business side showing Name, Priority, Value, and Owner, but hide technical effort columns.
Set up a "Priority Board" view grouped by your Priority column, showing all items organized from highest to lowest priority. This becomes your reference during weekly backlog refinement sessions. You can save different filter combinations as separate views. Create a "Ready to Plan" view that filters to show only items with Status = "In Planning," so your planning team knows exactly which items need attention this week.
5. Set Up Automation Rules for Workflow Management
Use Monday.com's automation feature to reduce manual work and keep your backlog fresh. Go to the Automations menu and create rules that notify owners when items enter the "Ready for Development" status. Create another automation that automatically moves items from "In Planning" to "Ready for Development" when all acceptance criteria are completed (if you track this in a checkbox column).
Set up an automation that reminds the board owner whenever items have been in "Backlog" status for more than 90 days without being prioritized. This prevents stale items from accumulating. Another useful automation: when an item is marked as "Done," automatically log the actual effort spent (if you have a completion date field) and calculate the variance against estimated effort. This data helps improve future estimates.
Create a recurring automation for your backlog refinement session. Set it to run weekly at the same time, creating a status report that shows how many items moved through each status during the week and which items were reprioritized. This gives you data about your refinement velocity and team productivity.
6. Integrate External Data and Tools
Connect Monday.com to your development tools to keep backlog status synchronized. Use Monday.com's built-in integrations with GitHub and GitLab to automatically update item status when pull requests are created or merged. Go to Integrations in your board menu and search for your platform.
For customer feedback management, integrate your feedback collection tool or customer interview platform. Create a "Feedback Links" column that points to supporting research for each backlog item. Link to your guide documentation or use formulas to pull feedback counts directly if your research tool has an API.
Set up Slack notifications for important backlog events. Configure alerts that notify your product channel when Priority 1 items are added, when items move to Ready for Development, or when high-value items are marked complete. This keeps your whole team informed without requiring them to check Monday.com constantly.
7. Run Weekly Backlog Refinement in Monday.com
Host your backlog refinement session directly in Monday.com. Create a "Refinement Session" board view that shows only items with Status = "In Planning." Start each session by reviewing the top 10 unprioritized items in your Backlog swimlane. Use the item detail panel to capture requirements, acceptance criteria, and size estimates directly in the board.
During the session, walk through each item: read the description, discuss the value, estimate the effort, and assign an owner. Update the Priority field and move items to "Ready for Development" once the team agrees they're ready. Use Monday.com's comments feature to capture discussion points and decisions, keeping everything linked to the specific item.
Create a document column or use the Long Text field to record the refinement outcome for each item. Track which items were discussed but deferred, which were split into smaller pieces, and which were removed from the backlog entirely. This creates a historical record that helps you understand your prioritization decisions.
8. Track Backlog Health Metrics
Create a dashboard or separate reporting board that tracks backlog health. In a new board, create metrics that pull from your main backlog board. Use formulas to calculate: total items in backlog, average priority score, items in Ready for Development status, and backlog age (average days in backlog before moving to In Progress).
Track your refinement velocity: how many items move from Backlog to Ready for Development each week. This helps you understand your team's capacity for planning work. Monitor priority shift rate: what percentage of items change priority each week. High numbers indicate either reactive prioritization or initial prioritization that wasn't well-thought-out.
Use Monday.com's reporting dashboard feature to visualize these metrics over time. This data helps during executive updates and supports decision-making about resource allocation. Compare backlog metrics to your actual delivery rate: are you adding items to the backlog faster than you're delivering them? This often indicates inflated expectations or resource constraints.
Pro Tips
- Create a formula column that calculates "Days Since Last Update" to identify stale backlog items that should be revisited or removed. This keeps your backlog fresh and prevents accumulation of items no one actually cares about anymore.
- Use Monday.com's Duplicate function when you have recurring types of work. For template backlog items like "Update documentation for new feature" or "Schedule customer interviews," create one item, then duplicate it as needed rather than creating from scratch each time.
- Set up a board automation that prevents items from moving to "In Progress" without having an estimated size. This enforces discipline in your refinement process and prevents developers from starting work without understanding scope.
- Create a monthly "Backlog Grooming" task that reviews all Backlog and In Planning items for ones that are no longer relevant. Archive these items rather than deleting them, keeping a historical record of what you decided not to build.
- Use Monday.com's link feature to show dependencies between backlog items. Link items that must be completed sequentially or that share common work, helping your team understand the critical path and identify potential bottlenecks.
When to Upgrade to a Dedicated Tool
As your product organization grows, you may need a specialized product management tool. Consider upgrading if your backlog exceeds 1,000 items and you're struggling to find what you need, if you need advanced dependency management across multiple interconnected products, or if you're running multiple product lines with separate but related backlogs.
You might outgrow Monday.com if you need sophisticated roadmap planning with complex scenario modeling, if you need to combine product data with separate customer success data, or if you need a tool built specifically for your industry with regulatory or compliance features. Also consider dedicated tools if your engineering team is very large and already uses specialized development tools with better integrations than Monday.com offers.
Explore options in the PM tools directory when you're ready to evaluate dedicated solutions. Before upgrading, though, make sure you've actually configured Monday.com to its full potential. Many teams find that customizing Monday.com properly solves problems they thought required a new tool. Check this comparison if you're considering Asana as an alternative.