BUS603: Managing People

Backlog

A backlog (to-do-list) is a list of (often prioritized) uncompleted work items (deliverables), or (drivers) that need to be addressed.

Consider making backlogs visible, not only to other members of a team, but also to the wider organization.

Types of backlog include:

• governance backlog
• operations backlog
• sprint backlog
• product backlog
• impediments backlog
  

Implementation:

• analog backlog: sticky notes on a wall, or index cards, magnets and whiteboard
• digital backlog: e.g. Google Sheets, Trello, Kanban Flow, Jira, Asana
  

Each item on a (prioritized) backlog typically contains:

• a short description of a deliverable or a driver
• a unique reference number (or link) for each work item
• (the order of work items)
• dependencies to other work items or projects
• due date (if necessary)
• (optional) a measure for value
• (optional) a measure for investment (often an estimate of time or complexity)

Prioritize Backlogs

Order all uncompleted work items with the most important items first, then pull work items from the top whenever there is new capacity.

No two items can be of equal importance, meaning it is necessary to agree on priorities and make tough choices.

A prioritized backlog helps to maintain focus on the most important items.

Visualize Work

Maintain a system that allows all stakeholders to review the state of all work items currently pending, in progress or complete.

• valuable for self-organization and pull-systems
• system must be accessible to everyone affected
• analog: post-its on a wall, or index cards, magnets and white board
• digital: Trello, Kanbanery, Leankit, Jira, Google Sheets, etc.
  

Things to track:

• types of work items (e.g. customer request, project tasks, reporting tasks, rework)
• start date (and due date if necessary)
  
• priorities
• stages of work (e.g. “to do”, “in progress”, “review” and “done”)
• impediments/blocks
• who is working on which items
• agreements and expectations guiding workflow (e.g. definition of done, policy, quality standards)
• use colors, symbols, highlights etc.
  

Pull-System For Work

People pull in new work items when they have capacity (instead of having work pushed or assigned to them.

Prioritize pending work items to ensure that important items are worked on first.

Pulling in work prevents overloading the system, especially when work in progress (WIP) per person or team is limited.

Limit Work in Progress

Limit the number of work items in any stage of your work process.

Work in progress includes:

• the number of items in a backlog
• concurrent projects or tasks for teams or individuals
• products in a portfolio
  

When an action would exceed an agreed upon limit of work items in progress, this needs to be brought up with the team before continuing.

Timebox Activities

Set a time constraint to stay focused, bring consciousness to the time you have and how you use it.

A timebox is a fixed period of time spent focused on a specific activity (which is not necessarily finished by the end of the timebox).

• to get value out of the timebox, be clear what you want to achieve
• agree on the duration of the timebox and visualize time
• negotiate and agree to extend a timebox before the time is up
• break down longer activities into manageable timeboxes
• consider frequent review of progress
• consider choosing someone (the “time keeper”) to help others stay conscious of time
  

You could timebox:

• meetings, calls, dialogue
• tasks
• experiments
• an attempt to solve a problem
• checking emails
• breaks
• a longer stretch of work (a sprint)

Coordinator

A person fulfilling the role of a coordinator is accountable for coordinating a domain's operations and is selected for a limited term.

The coordinator may be selected by the team itself, or by the delegator.

Several coordinators may collaborate to synchronize work across multiple domains.

Instead of selecting a coordinator, a team may choose to self-organize.