Software Architect's Handbook

Prioritizing the backlog

The list of features and bugs in the product backlog should be prioritized by the team, which assists with project planning so that teams know which items to focus on first.

Backlog prioritization is not something that occurs just once. As the architecture backlog changes, priorities may need to change as well. You can revisit the prioritization of architecture backlog items as many times as necessary.

Product backlog items should be linearly ordered based on criteria. One set of criteria that has been used in practice to prioritize backlog items is called the DIVE criteria.