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10 votes

Prioritization in Agile

It might even be a stretch to say that business value is the most important factor. Overall, prioritization often comes down to a ROI, but a lot of factors can feed into that, such as: Types of Value ...
Daniel's user avatar
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10 votes
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What are the benefits of queuing tasks as opposed to assigning them?

I will assume that the "push" approach is not only direct, but also immediate. (Like when someone comes up to you and says "hey, Joe, can we roll this later today?"). The "...
ArtemGr's user avatar
  • 267
8 votes
Accepted

Software Dev Team; Managing Task Across Multiple Projects in a Manufacturing Plant with no Deadlines or Set Features?

So, it looks like, you have two problems: Clear priorities. Delivering various projects in parallel. First one can be addressed by creating a clear list of all features (not tasks!) from different ...
Anton Nepomnyaschih's user avatar
7 votes
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Should a technical person take part of the user stories prioritization process?

Product Owner and the Development Team collaborate The Scrum Guide is very clear on these aspects: Product Owner and the Development Team collaborate on Backlog refinement: Product Backlog ...
Ashok Ramachandran's user avatar
6 votes

Prioritization in Agile

Product Backlogs Must be Ordered, but How is Implementation-Specific As we know, normally, during the prioritization process in agile, business value is the most important factor that taken into ...
Todd A. Jacobs's user avatar
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6 votes
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Relative priority of tasks with equal priority in a Kanban System

I would recommend against having tasks of equal priority. Use the order in which they appear on the Kanban board to indicate relative priority. This will help the team to avoid having to constantly re-...
Barnaby Golden's user avatar
5 votes

How can we handle urgent work items defined by leadership at the end of a Sprint?

My preferred approach in this situation is to do the requested work as quickly and effectively as possible. Then I would: Detail the impact the last minute change had on the team and report it Coach ...
Barnaby Golden's user avatar
4 votes

Is it useful to require a priority justification in scrum user stories?

The answer to your question lies in the "3 C's of User Stories". The first C of the user story is the card (the thing you're writing) which acts as a sort of reminder and a placeholder for the second ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 16.9k
4 votes

Method for scoring backlog items in Jira based on impact to company goals versus level of effort

Looks very objective but counterproductive While this approach looks super objective, I don't recommend it for the following reasons: Sprint goal: Selection of stories for a Sprint should be driven ...
Ashok Ramachandran's user avatar
4 votes

Priority vs Business Value

TL;DR The Product Owner can track business value or other information on items in the Product Backlog. However, from a process perspective, only the sequential order of Product Backlog Items really ...
Todd A. Jacobs's user avatar
  • 50.7k
4 votes

Prioritizing both functional and non-functional requirements in Agile

There are two approaches I have seen for this. 1. The development team owns engineering quality With this approach the non-technical stakeholders (and Product Owner if using Scrum) focus purely on ...
Barnaby Golden's user avatar
4 votes

Backlog Grooming

In order to do Sprint Planning, you first need a Product Backlog. What you have is not sufficient to act as a Product Backlog. The Scrum Guide defines a Product Backlog as "an ordered list of ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
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4 votes
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How to accurately communicate task priorities?

Good question. I'm unclear on some of the details that inspire your question, so I'm going to provide three different answers Risk Matrices are dangerous to your health. You say, I fall back to very ...
MCW's user avatar
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4 votes

Is it possible to give timelines in SCRUM?

Like most things, it depends. In theory, you could forecast when work is likely to be done. If you understand your team's average velocity (whether it's in story points per Sprint, ideal hours per ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
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4 votes

How can we handle urgent work items defined by leadership at the end of a Sprint?

TL;DR The goal of Scrum is not to prevent change. It simply makes the cost of change visible, and the impact to the team's processes and cadence transparent to stakeholders. The Sprint Goal is not a ...
Todd A. Jacobs's user avatar
  • 50.7k
3 votes
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How to shape the demand with Kanban?

Shaping demand isn't a Kanban problem per se, but Kanban can certainly help in two ways. First, Kanban provides a lot of visibility. That means that if you try some action to shape your demand, you ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 16.9k
3 votes

What are the benefits of queuing tasks as opposed to assigning them?

Pull approaches optimize for flow (how quickly tasks move from 'in progress' to 'done'), while push approaches optimize for 100% utilization (making sure everyone is doing something at all times). ...
Sarov's user avatar
  • 14.8k
3 votes

Should a technical person take part of the user stories prioritization process?

It sounds like there's a whole lot going wrong with your Scrum process. It's important to realize that a product backlog is not prioritized. It is ordered. There is no reference to a prioritized or ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 19.9k
3 votes

What to do if a Key stakeholder asks for a new request while my team is trying to meet other important deadlines?

This is a classic role for a project manager, that of managing changes. First of all, I suggest you create a change management process with some steps that will allow you to asses the impact this has ...
Bogdan's user avatar
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3 votes
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Should my backlog have a limit?

Your backlog should first have an order. Only then think about the limit. As you develop things, you discover new work that needs to be done, so you add that to the backlog. You might do some of this ...
Bogdan's user avatar
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3 votes
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How do you prioritize work packages/deliverables?

There is a presumption with projects that all identified work packages, activities, and tasks are necessary and required for the successful completion of the project. Within the context of the ...
David Espina's user avatar
  • 37.2k
3 votes

Foundations of managing "highest priority" tasks in multi-projects

The foundation for managing "highest priority" work in multi-projects is actually order, not priority. There is a saying that goes "When everything is urgent, nothing is". On the ...
Bogdan's user avatar
  • 15.5k
3 votes
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PI planning and a manageable backlog

When you do PI Planning, you aren't planning at the Story level. PI Planning looks at the Program Backlog, which holds Features and Enablers. The Team Backlog has Stories along with Enablers. Going ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 19.9k
3 votes

How can we handle urgent work items defined by leadership at the end of a Sprint?

(Assumption: 'top management' does not include the project owner(s)) We can discuss what is wrong with your Scrum structure ('top management' telling you what to do without going through the product ...
Jan Doggen's user avatar
2 votes

How to apply project management on IT Infrastructure sector (with daily priority tasks)

Governance. You have no governance. The tension between conflicting priorities, existing projects, new projects, and constrained resources is not abnormal. In fact, it should be expected and ...
David Espina's user avatar
  • 37.2k
2 votes
Accepted

Resources management and a cumbersome situation

The course of action depends on which role you are in. Reading between the lines, I believe you're interested in how C should engage / escalate in this situation. Depending on the relationship ...
Donal's user avatar
  • 36
2 votes

How to improve and facilitate prioritization of bug fixes?

One of the main problems with prioritizing bugs as they're reported to you by users is you're missing a lot of information, namely, how widespread a bug is and what its impact is on your software. ...
Kristine P. 's user avatar
2 votes

Is it useful to require a priority justification in scrum user stories?

Let's consult The Scrum Guide. The Product Owner is responsible for the Product Backlog, including its content, availability, and ordering. For the Product Owner to succeed, the entire organization ...
Alan Larimer's user avatar
  • 1,645
2 votes

Should a technical person take part of the user stories prioritization process?

Both previous answers from Thomas and Ashok are right on point (+1!) and I just wanted to throw a slightly different perspective not to the answer itself, but to the question. Should a technical ...
Tiago Cardoso's user avatar
2 votes

WIP Limits broken by low-priority Stories - What to do?

I have found that temporary fixes (like ignoring low-priority stories) often end up being long-lived. Better to get your board to a good place first, then work to optimise the WIP limits. The ...
Barnaby Golden's user avatar

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