When Mark, my husband, and I moved into this house a decade ago, we faced the problem many other people face: what to keep and what to toss (or recycle, etc.). Mark had a particularly difficult time with the kitchen drawer that held all the old baby dishes and utensils.
I wanted to toss everything in that drawer because our children were in their twenties. Grandchildren were not on the horizon. I thought we would buy all new stuff when we had grandchildren. However, Mark wanted to keep everything in that drawer. He was sure we would all revel in the sentimentality of our grandchildren using what our children used.
We compromised and put everything in a box labeled, “For the grandchildren.” That box moved into our basement and has not emerged since—even though, yes, we have two grandchildren now. We made that box a parking lot.
That's the idea of a parking lot—to simplify the now, next, and never choices.
Parking Lots Simplify Choices
We all have now, next, and never choices. However, the more items under consideration, the more decision load we experience. Too often, we allow too much work now, even more work next, and we forget we could choose never.
Parking lots allow us to make a first cut at “not now.” Then, that allows us to select the limited amount of work to do now. As we finish work, we can choose what to do next. The more work we finish, the clearer our future choices become. And that includes what not to do—the never. However, the more decisions we have, the less we can say “never” to some work. The parking lot allows us to postpone those decisions.
These now, next, and never decisions affect everyone, regardless of their role. What should we work on now? Do we need a little look ahead, for the next set of work? Can we make the never decision, or do people feel they need to leave their options open? The parking lot helps with that.
Here's how to make the parking lot work for you, regardless of what you need to decide. Let's start with how teams might use parking lots.
1. Potential Team Parking Lots
Clara, a new project manager, had spent an entire day generating a risk list for the project. The list had 50 items on it. She asked how she should manage all 50 items.
Instead of trying to actively manage 50 risks, could she choose the top 5-10 risks, and then create signals to remind her to check the rest of the list every couple of weeks?
Yes, she could. She put 46 risks on the risk parking lot and monitored cycle time and defect escapes. That reduced everyone's decision load for what to check and what to manage.
Teams that experiment a lot with how they work can create an Improvement parking lot. One team, new to an agile approach, had 24 items as a result of their retrospective. Half the team wanted to choose one item to improve—and every item was different. However, once they saw how the flow metrics interacted, the team chose two improvements: manage their WIP (Work in Progress) and finish the oldest item. That worked quite well for them.
Product leaders have more options for parking lots.
2. Potential Product-Oriented Parking Lots
I'm not a fan of long roadmaps because they create too much certainty too soon. Instead, I recommend a minimum roadmap that creates an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and to pull work once the team finishes that MVP.
Then, the product leader can create a Feature Parking Lot. If the product leader and/or the team realize they need to work on one of those features now, they can move a feature off the parking lot into the next batch of work.
That all manages the product strategy and tactics. But what might matter most is the organizational strategy.
3. Portfolio-Oriented Parking Lots
The project portfolio expresses the organizational strategy. That's why deciding what to do now and not yet is essential to effective portfolio management. While I'm happy to kill projects, I appear to be an outlier among my clients. That's why the project portfolio flow offers the idea of the parking lot, not just killing projects.
Do you work in an organization with plenty of pet projects? Those are the ones that senior leaders appear to love and do not appear to offer any value to anyone. Put those pet projects on the parking lot. Then, wait for someone to ask for them.
I often find that “out of sight” equals “out of mind” for the pet projects.
Choose How You Can Use a Parking Lot
Assess the decision(s) you need to make. Consider the flow metrics as you decide about now, next, and never:
- If you must make a decision now, review the WIP you are willing to carry. The more you can reduce that WIP, the less decision load you have.
- Choose a time to make the next decision. Do you need to show candidate decisions now? That's the next set of decisions.
- See how many decisions you can either box up, like those baby dishes, in a parking lot. Or, kill those decisions now and leave room for more innovation.
Parking lots can help postpone some difficult conversations until it's obvious you don't need to do that work. I prefer to have those conversations, but sometimes, everyone circles around the decision problem. Instead, postpone some work with a parking lot. That will free everyone to do a better job now.
And our “For the grandchildren” box? I suspect our grandchildren will open it when our kids have to clean out this house. It should be good for a laugh!
This newsletter touches on topics in Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, and Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver.
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© 2024 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 21, #5, ISSN: 2164-1196