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As a product owner, can I completely remove a story from the Product Backlog?
I know everybody can add stories at anytime to the product backlog, but is the PO's only way to remove a story to put it at the bottom of the stack, or can he/she simply remove it from the backlog?
You can do whatever you need to do, however removing stories is not advisable unless they are either wrong, duplicates or obsolete. The reason is that it takes time to write a story, and for you to read it and prioritize it.
Having a story you think is very low (or no-) priority at the bottom of the pile still has a value because it theoretically prevents new duplicates from being presented.
On the other hand, there's usually no cost in not removing a story.
The Product Owner is the absolute owner of the Product Backlog. As such, he/she has the last word on what goes in, stays in, or gets out of it.
I wouldn't recommend to keep stories in the backlog "just in case." True, there is a cost associated with creating a story, but each item in the backlog will have to be maintained, reviewed, reprioritized, etc. and that represents a cost as well (in lean thinking, it's "inventory", and considered a waste.) I'll argue that the cognitive load of all that work is significantly higher than the creation cost (unless, of course, a lot of effort is spent specifying and detailing the work items, but that's a separate problem in itself.) Ultimately, if something is important enough, it will come back at the appropriate time.
All that being said, it's possible that in your particular situation you might feel that, as a PO, you don't have the final authority to remove items from your Product Backlog. Many organizations declare their Business Analysts to be Product Owners, but they don't give them full authority over the Backlog (and the project in general.) If that's your situation, then think who in your project organization has that final say about what goes in and out of the backlog, who can decide on the project direction, who is the "single throat to choke" if the project goes south; that person is really the Product Owner.
Generally speaking, the PO can choose to add, remove or re-prioritise stories in the product backlog as they see fit.
That said, it shouldn't just be gut feel. A good PO will be talking to stakeholders, looking at usage stats, user research etc to decide which stories are not valuable enough to deliver.
They should also make sure that when stories are removed from the backlog altogether, people who are hoping for that change or feature are kept informed.
The best explanation for Product Owner can be found in the below video, which talks about how to do planning and prioritizing of stories. A must watch for every.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE
The summary of the video is:
Is the communicator between the Stakeholders, users and the team
So in summary, PO works with the team to "build the right thing" which means:
To answer the question, yes, the product owner can remove stories from the backlog and should regularly do so in order to make sure the backlog stays focused on providing the most value to stakeholders.
