Nobody inflates a transformation on purpose. Scope grows by addition, and priority grows by default.
I once watched a careful consolidation turn several dozen workshop topics and interview findings into a couple of dozen work packages. Good work. Then I looked at the people and priorities instead. More than half the packages were marked top priority. One trusted leader sat on well over a third of them. One named the same person as owner and co-lead.
Freeze the list out loud
A list only stops growing when someone says out loud that it has stopped. Once packages are agreed, freeze them. New ideas go on a parking list with a date, and nothing is added until something closes.
That sentence belongs to the sponsor, said before anyone proposes an addition. Said first, it is the rules of the game; said in response, it sounds like a rejection. People stop fighting for the backlog once they believe the parking list is real.
A freeze in the office's documents is a preference. A freeze said by the sponsor, in the room, is a rule.
Cap the top band, honestly
Ask leaders which topics are critical and each will, in good faith, mark their own. That is a wish list. Cap the top priority at five: small enough for a leadership team to hold in its head and for a forum to actually discuss. If the room will not choose the five, the sponsor should.
The cap is hard to hold. I have seen the count displayed live every time someone set a priority, and the top band still overran by nearly double. A tool can make the count visible; it cannot make anyone choose. It does turn the overrun into a question the sponsor can ask every cycle.
A pair is two people, and load is a picture
Every package needs an accountable owner and a co-lead from a second function, holding the seam the change crosses. A pair with one name is a to-do item with a nicer label. Refuse it at load.
Concentration is invisible in a column of names and obvious in one bar per person, so put the load on one screen. Aim for no one owning more than three. The overloaded leader is there because they are trusted; left alone, that becomes a queue for one diary. Rebalancing is a decision about people, made in the forum, not by a tracker.
Every list looks reasonable one row at a time. Freeze it, cap it, and let the room see who is carrying it.