Raise your hand, if you are always having to manage an increasing workload and limited team capacity?
Your team will likely have a set velocity
So you are able to estimate how long it will take them to complete a given workload
But things don’t always go according to plan
There’s always last-minute requests that need attention right there and then
The problem is that these take away from the work already started
And impact the team’s productivity
Which ends up impacting their ability to deliver on time
So what do you do?
As a product manager, your role is to minimize the noise
And you can achieve this by asking yourself these 3 questions:
- Does the work being expedited really need to be expedited?
- What’s the criteria on what gets to skip the queue?
- Can you predict how this will impact the overall outcome?
The answers to these questions will inform your decision on which items to work on
And you will be able to articulate to your team why a certain list of work items takes precedence during that period
What other ways do you determine priorities to focus on?
