{"id":3644,"date":"2020-09-05T14:22:34","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T12:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/?p=3644"},"modified":"2024-08-11T15:19:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T13:19:41","slug":"how-to-cope-with-predefined-deadlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/how-to-cope-with-predefined-deadlines\/","title":{"rendered":"How to deal with predefined deadlines?"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>\"... yes, but here the dates are always predefined!\"<\/pre>\n<p>From the point of view of those carrying out the work, this is often the case, perhaps simply because nobody knows where the current limits are or because the sales department demands more in order to get at least a little more.<\/p>\n<p>But how do we achieve for the whole organization &#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>more adherence to delivery dates and thus more trust of our customers, who come again and again<\/li>\n<li>at the same time less stress and higher motivation of the employees<\/li>\n<li>and earn even more money at the same time?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here is a simple recipe (which admittedly is not as easy to follow):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Do not blindly accept the customer&#8217;s schedules but &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Let the implementing team relatively estimate the effort by comparing with work the team has already done. Let the business owners relatively estimate the value in a similar way. The priority can then be calculated by: Prio = Value \/ Effort<\/li>\n<li>The clear prioritization leads to more focus and an earlier completion of the highest prioritized work. We work only as fast as necessary for good quality, but not faster, which in turn leads to less stress and more motivation.<\/li>\n<li>By retrospectively comparing the estimate with the actual effort, we can determine how much the organization can really achieve in a defined period of time. (Determining the real capacity of the organization)<\/li>\n<li>Do not schedule more work than the real capacity allows. Better leave some buffer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>An Example<\/h2>\n<p>Here is an example view of a development planning at the end of C1.2020. The columns represent three-month &#8220;cycles&#8221;, the colored cards represent prototypes of different applications in different stages of maturity. The numbers in the lower right corners of the cards represent the effort the development group (cluster) has to invest in creating and testing the prototypes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3690 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1890\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example.png 1890w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example-300x176.png 300w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example-1024x601.png 1024w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example-768x451.png 768w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Cycle_Plan_Example-1536x902.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1890px) 100vw, 1890px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Showing cluster or team velocity via a &#8220;burn-up chart&#8221; is also very helpful when also working towards a larger goal, such as releasing a product version or milestone.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4482 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-1024x976.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"618\" srcset=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-1024x976.png 1024w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-300x286.png 300w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-768x732.png 768w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-1536x1464.png 1536w, https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/Burn-up-chart-2048x1952.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here, an approximate delivery date is determined by extrapolating the past work rate (aka velocity).<\/p>\n<p>This should be sufficient to achieve a high level of on-time delivery. Now we come to the control of the whole thing and to earning more money.<\/p>\n<h2>Earning money with Service Classes<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Introduce service-classes where the customer has to pay more for faster delivery. Internally, the priority of the corresponding project will move up accordingly<\/li>\n<li>Design the price so that lower service-classes are attractive to customers. (By the way, this can be used to &#8220;educate&#8221; customers to order early). This leaves enough room in the higher service-classes for urgent and late orders.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>If a customer now tries to specify a delivery date, we can offer him options that we can keep.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By the way, the presented procedure also works for <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/service-team\/\">internal service teams<\/a> with internal customers.<\/p>\n<p>The described principles can be realized very well with the P4 framework, management of priorities and service classes through <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/backlog\/\">backlogs<\/a>, comparative estimation through <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/planning-poker\/\">agile estimation<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/velocity\/\">consistent work speed<\/a> through stable self-organized teams and pull.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/roles_and_skills\/\">Next article: Roles, skills, and role conflicts<\/a> \u00a0 |\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/p4faq\/\">Back to FAQ<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/\">Home<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;&#8230; yes, but here the dates are always predefined!&#8221; From the point of view of those carrying out the work, this is often the case, perhaps simply because nobody knows where the current limits are or because the sales department demands more in order to get at least a little more. But how do we&hellip;","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[511],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.10.10","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3644"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4847,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3644\/revisions\/4847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p4dev.hardscrum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}