[teampractices] How do teams track work not related to goals?

[David Strine]

I'll ask a more complicated question. Does it matter? If you think your
goals are being affected my other work, then it's probably worth testing.
If not, then it might not be a productive use of your time.

We've had several conversations about tracking types of work. I believe it
is more accurate and efficient to start with broad categories and slowly
delve deeper. Also you need to strike a balance between tracking a lot of
variables and not driving your team crazy with record keeping.

Fr-tech is tracking unplanned work to start. We are 8 weeks in (4 sprints).
We're only now getting patterns.

In general, objective and empirical data should speak for itself. If you go
into some investigation or analysis with a preconceived notions, then you
need to try and disprove your idea (think null hypothesis). Otherwise
you're running into selection and confirmation bias.




On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Within the foundation, each team identifies one or a handful of quarterly
> goals, which become the focus of the team. However, there is always going
> to be important work that doesn't fit into a goal. Either there were
> already too many goals in place, or there is one main goal but 10 ongoing
> projects, or maybe this other work is too small to justify being a goal,
> but too important to let slip.
>
> So the question I was asked was: How do other teams track these non-goal
> important work items? Obviously the tasks themselves can be tracked in
> phab, but do they get rolled up anywhere? How do teams ensure that they
> continue to be worked on, despite not being one of the main goals?
>
>
> Kevin Smith
> Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
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