Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

Problem

"In 2014 I was on the first feature team at an organization. It took our team six months to establish a proof-of-concept but once we succeeded in doing so we industrialized it. However, there were plenty of issues that the team faced along the way including not being autonomous, insignificant data, and the technology had issues as well. One problem for me personally, during this time, was prioritization."

Actions taken

"I needed a way to manage prioritization and dependencies. Of course there was a lot of back and forth with the stakeholders and the development team about what was most important, but I found that using tools aided my defense. I used them to framework top priority items, products, and people. Tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack allowed for me to have visual and tangible evidence of what aspects required immediate attention and those that could be left for later."

Lessons learned

"Don't be so reliant on the tools. Sometimes they can steer you in the wrong direction or end up being a complete nightmare. For example, if you have three thousand people on Slack and each one has an inquiry. I suggest using frameworks in addition to tools."