(2022-03-07) Turek How To Do Less

Alex Turek: How To Do Less. There’s two loose definitions of prioritization.

Prioritization(1): Ordering a todo list.

Prioritization(2): Only doing the top item on the list

You’ve already done (1). You’ve done (2) … sort of. But somehow you’re still underwater.

You’re going to deliberately overshoot, cutting down WIP, and then maintaining a healthy amount going forward.

Get out of the trap

First, you need to lower everybody’s expectations, ASAP.

Everything your team already owns (that actually matters to your customers) needs to approach 0 maintenance costs. (Technical Debt)

This work is arguably more important than any new features - make sure you message it that way. It’s glorious work, because that lead is maintaining something that is already valuable today

Cut the entire roadmap of new features down to one thing at a time (development queue). Take the entire list of WIP, and get ready to drop almost all of it. I know you’re dropping critical things - we’ve established that you’ve already dropped every P2+. Now it’s time to cut the P1s.

Handling Initial Disappointment

Say No, early and often

A team that helps each other focus

Copy/paste: How to correct distractions

You have to finish work

You might think a few flaky tests are okay, or be looking at that Jira ticket to “Add monitoring”, and be tempted to drag that below NEW_NEXT_PRIORITY that your boss has been asking you about for weeks. A shortcut gets you to move down that priority list finally!

Maintaining flexibility