Everyone should be able to win.
Imagine yourself: You are a car racer at a car rally. Your starting position is number 60. Every time you have made up a few places and you are in front of a bottleneck, you are stopped and the cars with the first starting numbers are let ahead. You can catch up again between bottlenecks, but you will then be pushed back again.
Do you have a fair chance of winning? No!
In pipeline management, all cars get an equal chance. Vehicles with lower priority would only hinder those with higher priority. You don’t let them start in the first place!
Strategic and Operational Prio.
Strategic priority ranks projects according to their contribution to business value and strategy fit. Operational priority decisions often have to be made differently according to urgency, because of dependencies or supply chains. This is what we call operational priority.
Strategic prioritisation was previously done in the funnel (portfolio management).
And even more systematically and evaluatively than before AgilePortfolioManagement.
Operational prioritisation in the tunnel.
After this tough examination, only the projects worthy of it receive tunnel approval. However, all approved projects then have equal clearance to start.
Of course, if there are conflicts, there needs to be further prioritisation – but according to “operational priority”. And this is best determined by the POT with the team for the next sprint in conclave.
Clues for the operational prio are the current buffer consumption (coffee fund) and whether a work package is on the critical path or not.
Rules for operational prioritisation.
Prioritisation within a team can be set easily and with little effort in conclave and sprint planning.
If priority decisions have to be made between teams or even between projects, rule-based priorities help to reach stable decisions:
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