How to Build a Product Backlog the Zapier Way

High-growth teams can learn a lot from how Zapier manages its product backlog. By treating the backlog as a living, collaborative system instead of a static list, you can reduce chaos, shorten feedback loops, and ship features that actually matter to your customers.

This how-to guide walks you through a practical backlog workflow inspired by Zapier’s internal practices, so you can adapt it to your own product, team size, and tooling.

Why the Zapier Approach to Backlogs Works

Many teams struggle with backlogs that become cluttered, outdated, and impossible to prioritize. The approach used at Zapier solves this by focusing on three principles:

• Customer-centric planning instead of idea dumping.
• Cross-functional collaboration across product, engineering, design, and support.
• Async communication that supports distributed work.

The result is a lean, actionable product backlog that reflects what your users need right now, not what someone guessed months ago.

Step 1: Capture the Right Ideas Like Zapier

The first challenge is deciding what goes into your backlog. Zapier-style backlogs start with structured intake, not random requests.

Set Up Clear Intake Channels

Create dedicated places where ideas and issues can be submitted. Examples include:

• A shared form for internal teams to request features.
• A customer feedback board or CRM tags.
• A support queue label for recurring issues.
• A channel in your chat tool for quick suggestions.

Each idea should come with minimum information so it is actionable:

• Who is affected (user type, segment, or account).
• The problem or job-to-be-done, not just a solution request.
• Evidence or examples (tickets, usage data, interviews).
• Impact (urgency, frequency, or revenue connection).

Use Zapier-Style Templates for Consistency

To avoid messy backlog items, define a simple template. A lightweight structure could include:

• Title: Short, problem-focused description.
• Context: Why this matters now.
• User story: “As a <user type>, I want <need> so that <outcome>.”
• Evidence: Data, quotes, or examples.
• Risks and assumptions: What might be wrong or unknown.

Zapier uses these kinds of consistent patterns so any teammate can quickly understand an item and contribute to it without meetings.

Step 2: Triage and Classify the Backlog

Once ideas are captured, the next step is triage. At Zapier, this is where items are cleaned up, de-duplicated, and tagged so they are easy to prioritize later.

Create Categories Inspired by Zapier

Define a small set of categories that match your product strategy. For example:

• New features: Net-new capabilities.
• Improvements: Enhancements to existing flows.
• Reliability: Bugs, performance, and stability.
• Experience: UX and usability polish.
• Experiments: Bets you want to test.

Add tags or fields for:

• Product area or surface.
• User segment.
• Expected effort band (S/M/L, or t-shirt sizing).
• Strategic theme or OKR.

This kind of structure mirrors how a team like Zapier can slice its backlog during planning without getting lost in hundreds of individual tickets.

Run Regular Triage Sessions

Instead of continuously shuffling everything, set regular triage blocks, such as weekly or bi-weekly. In each session:

1. Review new items added since the last triage.
2. Merge duplicates and link related requests.
3. Clarify missing details or send follow-up questions.
4. Close items that are clearly out of scope.

Keep these sessions short and focused. The goal is to maintain a healthy inflow, not to fully design solutions.

Step 3: Prioritize with a Zapier-Inspired Framework

Prioritization is where a lean backlog becomes a strategic tool. Zapier relies on clear criteria and async debate to decide what to build next.

Choose a Simple Scoring Method

You do not need a complex model. Pick a small set of criteria and apply them consistently. For example:

• Impact: How much user or business value it creates.
• Reach: How many users will be affected.
• Confidence: How sure you are about the impact.
• Effort: Rough size of the work.

Give each item a small score, then calculate a priority score (for example, (Impact × Reach × Confidence) ÷ Effort). This mirrors the kind of structured tradeoffs made at companies like Zapier without overcomplication.

Hold Async Prioritization Reviews

Rather than long live meetings, gather input asynchronously:

• Share a shortlist of candidate items for the next cycle.
• Invite comments from product, engineering, design, and support.
• Capture disagreements and alternatives directly in the ticket.
• Have a clear decision owner who resolves tradeoffs.

This async rhythm is central to how Zapier works across time zones and disciplines, and it can significantly reduce meeting overhead for your own team.

Step 4: Turn Backlog Items into Ready Work

After prioritization, not every item is ready for development. Zapier focuses on bridging the gap between raw ideas and implementation-ready work.

Define a Clear “Ready” Checklist

Before a backlog item is moved into an active sprint or workflow, check that it meets a definition of ready, such as:

• Problem and outcome are clearly articulated.
• Scope is small enough to complete within your iteration length.
• Dependencies and constraints are identified.
• Acceptance criteria are written and testable.
• Design or technical spikes are planned if needed.

Only items that pass this checklist should be pulled into development. This reflects a key pattern you see at Zapier: invest just enough time before building to reduce rework.

Use Specs Similar to Zapier Product Docs

For higher-impact work, draft a short spec or brief that includes:

• Background and context.
• User problem and target metrics.
• High-level solution direction, not full detail.
• Risks, tradeoffs, and open questions.
• Success criteria and measurement plan.

Keep these docs light and collaborative. Link them directly from the backlog tool so anyone can trace decisions.

Step 5: Continuously Groom Like Zapier

A product backlog is never “done.” Zapier treats backlog refinement as ongoing maintenance, not a one-time project.

Schedule Regular Grooming Sessions

On a repeating cadence (for example, every two weeks):

1. Re-score priorities based on new data or strategy shifts.
2. Archive or close stale items that no longer matter.
3. Break large ideas into smaller, independently shippable slices.
4. Re-balance the mix of features, improvements, and reliability work.

This ensures your backlog reflects reality instead of historical wishes.

Use Metrics to Guide Backlog Health

Track simple indicators of backlog quality, such as:

• Total number of items over time.
• Average age of items in different categories.
• Share of work on reliability vs. new features.
• Lead time from idea to shipped value.

Teams inspired by Zapier keep an eye on these signals to prevent backlog bloat and maintain a steady flow of user value.

Learn More from the Original Zapier Source

The workflow described here is based on the public explanation of how the company manages its backlog. You can read the full article on the Zapier blog for more background and examples: Zapier product backlog article.

If you want strategic help implementing similar systems, Consultevo offers consulting on product operations, automation, and tooling to support healthy backlogs and async collaboration.

Adopting these Zapier-style practices will help you create a product backlog that is lean, transparent, and relentlessly focused on customer value, no matter what tools you use.