What is Backlog?
Hi, I’m Kota, a director of web development, designing, and marketing.
In this article, I would like to introduce Backlog, a project management tool. Many project management tools are made overseas, but Backlog is made in Japan.
Basic Information of Backlog
Backlog is a project management tool provided and developed by Japanese IT company Nulab Inc. The developer, Nulab, was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Fukuoka, Japan.
Nulab also provides an online drafting service called Cacoo, which became more famous than Backlog(IMO).
Cacoo was very popular at that time as a “tool to make wireframes easily”. I was also using Cacoo around 2013 to 2014.
Today, Figma and Adobe’s XD are the most common tools, but back then there seemed to be relatively many wireframing tools.
By the way, Nulab has offices not only in Japan but also in New York. Perhaps because of this, the corporate website says, “We develop services that promote team collaboration and make work more enjoyable”.
Backlog was launched as a commercial service in 2006. Personally, I started to be interested in it in the late 2010s. I actually used the service around 2020.
As a project management tool, it has a relatively short history, but the number of users is steadily increasing. In Japan, the fact that it was developed by a Japanese company is probably another key factor in its popularity.
This service is also focused on accessibility.
About the accessibility, please have a look at this article. Even this is a Japanese article, but you can see the concept of this product and company.
How many users?
According to an article published in 2020, the number of paid subscriptions has reached 10,000.
This tool may be most often used by IT companies, but in fact it is utilized in a variety of industries.
Running owned media
One of the reasons why Backlog became widely known is the owned media site called “サル先生のGit入門 (Introduction to Git by Dr. Monkey)”.
This media explains Git in a very easy-to-understand manner.
What Backlog can do for you
Task Management
As many task management tools, you can assign people to be in charge, set priorities, and set start and due dates.
You can also set up parent-child relationships for tasks, and set up email notifications of task status.
Project Management
Roles
Source: 「プロジェクト管理ツール | プロジェクト管理ツールBacklog」 (Backlog official website)
https://backlog.com/ja/project-management-software/
Because permissions can be given to each user, it is possible to have not only internal members but also business partners and external collaborators participate in the Backlog.
Gantt chart
Source: 「プロジェクト管理ツール | プロジェクト管理ツールBacklog」（Backlog公式サイト）
https://backlog.com/ja/project-management-software/
Tasks can be displayed in Gantt chart format to visualize progress.
Kanban view (board view)
Source: プロジェクト管理ツール | プロジェクト管理ツールBacklog（Backlog website）
https://backlog.com/ja/project-management-software/
Tasks can be displayed in kanban format, and their status can be easily updated by drag-and-drop.
kanban format is also useful for organizing daily tasks, such as “What tasks are currently in progress” and “what are not?” “What are we going to do today?”
Version control
Backlog provides repository functionality for version control systems such as Git and Subversion.
One of the reasons why many IT companies have adopted Backlog is probably because of this integrated version control system.
With this feature, you can check commit history, review code, and comment on pull requests in Backlog.
In Git, you can also use Git Large File Storage (LFS), also known as Git LFS functionality, to manage design data and video data.
