--- title: "What is backlog bankruptcy? · DeliverySheet" description: "Backlog bankruptcy closes an oversized backlog by deciding every item: declined with a reason, parked with a review date, or kept by an advocate." canonical_url: "https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/backlog-bankruptcy" meta: author: "Tan Gravam" "og:description": "Backlog bankruptcy closes an oversized backlog by deciding every item: declined with a reason, parked with a review date, or kept by an advocate." "og:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_1003ffe6879b666a.png" "og:image:alt": "Backlog bankruptcy — DeliverySheet glossary card" "og:image:height": "600" "og:image:type": image/png "og:image:width": "1200" "og:title": "What is backlog bankruptcy? — DeliverySheet glossary" "twitter:description": "Backlog bankruptcy closes an oversized backlog by deciding every item: declined with a reason, parked with a review date, or kept by an advocate." "twitter:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_1003ffe6879b666a.png" "twitter:image:alt": "Backlog bankruptcy — DeliverySheet glossary card" "twitter:title": "What is backlog bankruptcy? — DeliverySheet glossary" --- > Index of every page on this site: [llms.txt](https://www.deliverysheet.com/llms.txt) [← All terms](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) **Glossary ** # **What is backlog bankruptcy?** Backlog bankruptcy is the deliberate closure of an oversized backlog by finally making the decisions it contains — each item leaving as a recorded decline with a reason, a park with a review date, or a survivor someone will still argue for out loud. It is not a purge. A mass delete teaches requesters nothing and the requests come back. A 400-item backlog is 400 unrecorded nos — requests refused in practice without anyone saying so — and bankruptcy converts them into decisions that exist on the record and stay made. ## **Backlog bankruptcy vs grooming vs a purge** Backlog grooming refines and re-orders the items a team intends to keep; it assumes they belong there. A purge deletes items by age, which destroys the record and teaches requesters only that the queue is where requests go to disappear — so the needs come back, and this time they arrive already escalated. Bankruptcy is neither. It treats the backlog as what it has become — a pile of decisions nobody made — and makes them, one item at a time, with the result recorded where the requester can see it. ## **How to run a backlog bankruptcy** Put the people who can speak for the work in a room — the delivery leads and whoever owns the product direction — and walk the backlog oldest first, in time-boxed sessions. Every item leaves with one of four results: a duplicate or dead item closed as housekeeping; declined, with a one-line reason the requester can read; parked, with a review date or an explicit decision to park it indefinitely; or surviving, because someone in the room will argue for it out loud, now. That last test is the one that makes the exercise work. "Might this be useful?" saves everything, because everything might. "Will anyone here make the case for it?" separates what the organisation still wants from what it has already declined in practice. Then send the declines back to their requesters: a no that can be contested is worth more than a maybe that cannot be found. ## **Keeping the backlog from refilling** A bankruptcy that changes nothing at the door is followed by another one. Two changes keep it clean: a bar at intake, so requests that state no need and no consequence go back with a question while the requester still has the context; and a cheap no, so declining a request on arrival is a one-sentence act rather than something saved for the next clear-out. Parked items then need their review dates honoured, or the park becomes the new backlog. [The essay behind “Backlog bankruptcy” →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/blog/backlog-bankruptcy) [Topic: Turning a request into a decision →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/topics/intake) ## **Related terms ** - [Shaping](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/shaping) Shaping turns a raw request into something decidable: the problem stated apart from the proposed solution, the intended outcome, what is known versus assumed versus unknown, and a likely owner. - [Slow maybe](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/slow-maybe) A slow maybe is a request that is never refused and never advanced — kept alive by silence, costing the requester repeated follow-ups and the team repeated re-reading, until it dies unrecorded. - [Demand](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/demand) A demand is a work request that has entered the delivery lifecycle — the unit a delivery governance system tracks from intake to decision. This definition comes from building **DeliverySheet** — it takes a vague work request to a clear delivery decision, so the shape, owner, capacity, dependencies and open questions are on the table before anyone commits people or a date. $189/month per workspace, unlimited members. 7-day free trial — card required, cancel before it ends and you're not charged. I answer the support email myself. [**Start 7-day trial **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/login?next=/app) [**All terms **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) [**See pricing **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/pricing) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DefinedTerm","@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/backlog-bankruptcy#term","name":"Backlog bankruptcy","description":"Backlog bankruptcy is the deliberate closure of an oversized backlog by finally making the decisions it contains — each item leaving as a recorded decline with a reason, a park with a review date, or a survivor someone will still argue for out loud.","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/backlog-bankruptcy","inDefinedTermSet":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary#termset"} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#website","@type":"WebSite","description":"Turn raw work requests into structured, decision-ready demands before you commit people, budget, or a date. 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