Several of my clients are trying to do the impossible right now—plan their portfolio for an entire year. Or plan their product backlogs for eighteen months or longer.
When I ask them how well that's worked for them in the past, they often say, “Our planning works great. Our execution? Not so well.”
That's my experience, too. However, when I started to use these three tips below, both my value delivery and my planning ability improved.
Here are the tips in the order I tend to use them:
- Saying no to some work allows you to say yes to more valuable work.
- Consider how little you can do instead of how much.
- Work as a team where possible.
Let's start with No.
Tip 1: Say No Based on Value
Most of us have too many demands on our time. We even call this problem that of “time management.” But I'll take a contrarian approach. It's not time management—it's action management (thank you, David Allen, of Getting Things Done fame.) And when we decide based on value, we can make better decisions.
If you're a leader or manager, you might say yes to coaching a team or specific team members so they can learn how to solve a particular problem in the future. That's a specific example where doing a little work now can increase the team's or a team member's value over a longer time.
But what do you do when your boss asks you or your team to do more work? Especially if you feel concerned about the political implications of saying no? If you need some ideas, see the series that starts with Saying No to More Work. Then, work with your boss to choose the most valuable work. Sometimes, the value is in the future, as with the team member coaching example. Sometimes, that value is immediate, as in releasing a feature or a product.
Remember, you can't say yes to more work without saying no to something else. If you do say yes to everything, you're placating other people instead of making a real commitment.
Sometimes, the way I say no is to consider how little I can do.
Tip 2: Consider How Little Is Still Effective
I wrote about how little thinking in my October newsletter, Three (Not So Intuitive) Tips to Make Your Work Easier and Better. Instead of repeating those arguments, here's why how little thinking works for you and your organization:
- Because everyone reduces their WIP, everyone reduces their cognitive load of what to consider. The weight of the WIP decreases.
- When we reduce our cognitive load, we sometimes free ourselves to think better. (I hesitate to say we can think faster, but I certainly think better when I'm only thinking of one item at a time.)
- Because we stay focused on one thing at a time, we tend to increase our throughput and reduce the aging of everything in our work system.
These are the flow metrics: WIP, throughput, aging, and cycle time. If you're not sure how these measures interact, read Little’s Law for Any Kind of Product Development: How to Learn How Long Your Work Will Take.
Even when teams focus on one project, sometimes, the organization pressures them to do more. In that case, see how little a team can do at each level: for a story, a feature set, and for this product. If teams can focus on how little and finish that, they might be able to buy themselves some slack before starting the next item. I often do this with a brainstorming activity when the team creates their roadmap. (That link opens to just the activity.)
While teams can focus on one item at a time, too few managers and leaders can. We have too many little “projects” that require intermittent work to finish. That's why I like to do one thing for a short time. Then, I make sure that work is clean before I switch to another item. See Context-Switching vs. Multitasking: Postpone Clean Work vs. a Messy Mind.
However, one way to finish more work faster is to collaborate as a team.
Tip 3: Work as a Team Where Possible
If your team has ever measured their cycle time with a value stream map, they can see where they have delays. (See Measure Cycle Time, Not Velocity.) It's the same idea for managers. (See Why Minimize Management Decision Time.)
The principles in Pairing, Swarming, and Mobbing work for everyone in the organization. In a feature or product team, collaboration supports the team's ability to finish one thing (that idea of done) before starting something else.
However, when managers use those same collaboration ideas, they reduce the friction and decision delay time in the organization. See Management Peer Cohort vs Team Pairing and Mobbing.
These three tips work because we understand the value of planning and replanning.
Planning and Replanning Both Have Value
Because I'm based in Boston, I would never start a drive that involves a highway without using a traffic-aware app. (Yes, I am a Boston driver and proud of it. I can avoid eye contact with the best of them.)
I have an initial plan—how the app thinks I should go. And then, I'm open to replanning when the traffic changes.
Our organizations don't literally have road traffic, but product markets change. Our customers and users change. And let's not forget, the world changes all the time.
Why create detailed long-horizon plans when we know we will have to change? Why not limit planning to a reasonably short horizon and then replan as necessary? You, just as my clients, can use and practice these tips. The more my clients use these tips, the more they improve their delivery and discovery.
As they limit their WIP, it's easier to plan by value. The more they collaborate, the better their delivery. Their replanning takes less time and they feel as if they succeed.
All because they started with these three practical tips. You can, too.
Learn with Johanna
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I hope your holiday season is delightful. See you in 2024.
Johanna
© 2023 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 20, #12, ISSN: 2164-1196