Chapter 7
Rank the Work

Think back to the last time you had a list of chores you needed to finish on a weekend. How did you decide what to do first? Maybe you attacked the one that would take the least amount of time, just so you could cross something off your list. (Finishing something can also impress a family member. You score points.)

Maybe something was no longer valuable if you didn’t finish it in time for a family member visit. If you’re supposed to finish hanging pictures because Aunt Martha is coming to visit and you don’t finish, is it really worth hanging the pictures after she’s gone? You might choose other work to do.

Maybe you decided you had a large project that you needed to explore a little first. In my house, home-improvement projects that involve painting are like that. The painter paints a swatch of paint and I get to look at it in different light.

Maybe you wanted to timebox some of the work to see how long the rest of the work would take. I hate cleaning my office because I could be doing other work that I find much more enjoyable instead. I’ll tackle that work by timeboxing the cleaning up to 30 minutes or an hour just to see where I am at the end of that time. If I think I can finish in a short period, I might do it. Otherwise, I get to do work I prefer doing next.

If I think something is risky, I might try to do something small to learn more about it. For example, if I think writing a specific book might be a good idea, I might try writing a blog post or an article first, before committing to a book. I haven’t expended much time and I have the value of the post or article.

You can rank work in these ways and more. If you don’t like these alternatives for ranking features in a project, consider the alternatives in Manage Your Project Portfolio [Rot16a]. There are additional options there that, even though they are for ranking projects in a project portfolio, will work for features also.