One of the biggest balancing acts in Agile portfolio management is keeping business and enabler epics in check. Lean too far in one direction, and you’ll start noticing cracks—whether it’s frustrated stakeholders waiting for customer-facing features or developers struggling under the weight of technical debt that’s been swept under the rug. The challenge lies in striking that sweet spot: a portfolio backlog that delivers value quickly while ensuring the product or system can scale and sustain future work.
Let’s start with what we’re dealing with here. Business epics are the headliners. These are the big, visible initiatives that deliver direct customer value or drive measurable business outcomes. It’s the shiny new feature, the product launch, or the system integration that everyone’s excited about. On the other side, the enabler epics often fly under the radar. These involve technical infrastructure, architectural runway, or tackling technical debt—the kind of work that rarely gets applause but sets the stage for smooth, efficient delivery down the road.
The trouble is, most organizations feel constant pressure to prioritize business epics because that’s what stakeholders and customers see. It’s what grabs the attention of executives and keeps the revenue streams flowing. But if you keep sidelining enabler epics, you’re essentially neglecting the foundation of everything you’re building. Sure, you can deliver fast for a while, but eventually, the cracks start showing: systems slow down, team velocity drops, workarounds pile up, and future flexibility becomes increasingly limited.
Here’s the thing: enabler epics aren’t about slowing the team down to pave the technical runway—they’re about securing your ability to accelerate when the time comes. A well-balanced portfolio backlog weaves both business and enabler work together, so the system stays healthy and capable of meeting future demands. Easier said than done, of course.
What often gets teams and leadership stuck is they view this as a binary choice—business versus enabler—as if the two are competing. But they’re not competing; they’re part of the same ecosystem. Business work fuels growth, while enabler work makes that growth sustainable over time. It’s not a matter of picking one over the other but rather finding harmony in how—and when—you tackle both.
In practice, achieving that balance depends on a few key factors, and one of the most important is context. Not all enabler efforts are created equal, and context helps teams figure out when they need to push the enabler work to the forefront versus keeping it on a slow burn in the background. For instance, if you’re approaching a major product release and parts of the system are buckling under technical strain, those enabler epics can’t wait. They need to be addressed immediately. But if the team can deliver the next round of features without serious risk or friction, business work might take the lead, with enabler work simmering alongside it.
Collaboration between teams and leadership plays a huge role here. Often, it’s the Product Owner or someone in a similar role who needs to make the case for enabler epics at the portfolio level. This isn’t always easy. Stakeholders love to hear about the shiny business outcomes but can tune out quickly when the talk turns to things like refactoring or bolstering system security. What makes the difference is tying enabler efforts directly to outcomes that matter. For example, don’t just say, “We need to clean up some tech debt.” Say, “This enabler epic will reduce delivery time for future features by 20%, which means faster time-to-market for our next release.” Framing it this way shows how enabler work directly supports the goals stakeholders care about.
It’s also critical to continuously reassess the health of your backlog. Teams often fall into the habit of shuffling enabler epics to the bottom because they don’t scream for attention the way a missed deadline on a business feature does. But ignoring them doesn’t make the underlying risks go away. One simple way to stay on top of this is by implementing guardrails—not rigid rules, but simple checks, like ensuring that a percentage of sprint capacity is consistently allocated toward enabler work. Think of it as an investment in the future, like maintaining the engine of a car so it doesn’t break down on the freeway.
That said, balance doesn’t mean giving both sides equal weight in every sprint or every release cycle. It’s about intentionality. For example, in the early stages of a product, you’ll likely prioritize enabler work to build the foundation. As the product matures and scales, the focus might shift toward business epics to drive growth. Being deliberate—and transparent—about these tradeoffs lets everyone buy into the process rather than feeling blindsided when priorities shift.
Another tough area is managing technical debt, often lumped in with enabler epics. Debt tends to feel like homework no one wants to do, especially when there’s always another shiny business initiative pleading for attention. But unchecked technical debt is a silent killer—it might not seem urgent now, but over time it slows the team down, increases turnover (because devs burn out trying to keep things running), and even creates risk that the product as a whole can’t scale. Addressing it in pieces, as part of ongoing enabler work, helps keep it from snowballing into an overwhelming issue that takes down the whole system.
Balancing the portfolio backlog takes discipline. It requires stepping back from the noise, looking at the landscape, and asking, “Are we setting ourselves up to deliver value not just today but next quarter, next year?” That’s not just the Product Owner’s job or the responsibility of the development teams—it’s something everyone in the organization needs to stay mindful of. Healthy portfolios don’t happen by accident, and they’re not preserved by guesswork. They’re the result of teams, Product Owners, and leadership consistently collaborating to weigh short-term wins against long-term resilience.
One of the more subtle risks in Agile portfolio management is the “we’ll get to it later” mindset that often creeps in. It’s easy to kick enabler work down the road, especially if there aren’t immediate fires to put out. But just like skipping oil changes for your car, deferring this work builds up unseen costs. The system seems fine—until one day the engine seizes up, and you’re stuck on the side of the road wondering how things got so bad.
The reality is, balance isn’t something you establish once and forget about. It’s an ongoing conversation, tied to the ever-changing needs of the product and the business. Sometimes, you’ll have a stretch where the focus is heavily skewed toward business epics—like during a major product launch or a push to meet a revenue milestone. Other times, you need to pause and invest in technical renovations to ensure you can sustain delivery in the long run. The key is to treat these shifts as intentional choices, not accidents. When teams and leaders consciously decide to adjust the balance, everyone can align on the “why.”
A common trap I’ve seen in organizations is trying to do everything at once. The portfolio ends up crammed with business and enabler epics that all feel like top priority, and teams are stretched so thin they lose sight of the bigger picture. Instead of true prioritization, you get a chaotic juggling act where nothing actually gets done well. This is where strong collaboration—and even a little pushback—from teams and Product Owners becomes essential. It’s about recognizing that you can’t boil the ocean. You need to make deliberate choices about which epics move forward now and communicate those trade-offs clearly.
Transparency goes a long way here. Stakeholders don’t need to be sold on every technical detail, but they do need to trust that the enabler work will pay off. One effective approach I’ve seen is treating enabler epics as an opportunity to tell a story. For example: Instead of labeling an epic as “optimize database performance,” frame it as, “Enable 3x faster query times to support user growth.” Suddenly, it’s not just an abstract technical effort—it’s a critical enabler for something the business cares about deeply. This reframing makes it easier for Product Owners to defend enabler work in prioritization discussions.
Another thing teams often overlook is the importance of measuring the impact of enabler epics. Unlike business epics, where success might be tied to revenue, satisfaction surveys, or feature adoption, enabler work’s benefits can be harder to quantify. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Metrics like system performance, delivery lead time, deployment frequency, and defect rates can all demonstrate how enabler work is improving the team’s ability to deliver value. Over time, building a track record of these improvements helps shift the organizational culture to one that values sustainability as much as speed.
One of the trickiest balancing acts is addressing technical debt. It’s tempting to label every frustrating bit of code as “tech debt” and demand cleanup, but not all debt is created equal. Some debt is deliberate—the trade-off you make to hit a tight deadline, with a plan to return and fix it later. Sometimes that debt doesn’t even need to be repaid if the code isn’t actively hindering future work. The real danger lies in the creeping, hidden debt—those shortcuts no one accounted for, or legacy structures slowly decaying. Teams need to collaborate with their leaders to shine a light on this kind of debt and prioritize repayment in a way that aligns with the portfolio’s business goals.
Communication is the glue that holds everything together in this balancing act. Development teams need to surface risks honestly without the fear of being brushed off for “slowing down delivery.” Product Owners must act as translators, ensuring leadership sees enabler work for what it is: investments in the future. And leadership needs to support a culture where sustainable practices are valued, not treated as afterthoughts when things go wrong. Without open dialogue and trust, it’s too easy for enabler work to fall out of view until the consequences become impossible to ignore.
Admittedly, striking that balance isn’t always smooth. Agile transformations themselves can tip the scales, especially early on. Many companies start out hyper-focused on delivering business value as a way to prove the ROI of “going Agile.” Enabler work can get pushed aside in the rush to show results. While that approach might help win over early skeptics, it’s not sustainable. Teams need to advocate for enabler epics as part of the transformation conversation right from the start, positioning them as structural aspects of becoming truly Agile—not just nice-to-haves.
In the end, maintaining harmony between business and enabler epics comes down to the same values that define Agile itself: collaboration, adaptability, and a relentless focus on delivering value. It’s not about favoring one side over the other, but rather recognizing that they’re two halves of the same whole. Ignoring enabler work for the sake of immediate wins damages your ability to deliver those wins in the future. Likewise, fixating solely on enabler work without delivering business outcomes erodes trust and momentum.
Scrum teams often hear that “working software is the primary measure of progress.” If you really embrace that idea, the health of your systems and processes is just as important as the business features you ship. A clear, sustainable balance between business and enabler epics ensures that teams remain empowered not just to deliver on their current commitments but to thrive well into the future. And as anyone who’s been in the Agile trenches long enough can tell you, that kind of balance is what keeps the engine running, no matter how fast you’re moving.
