Rank the Shortest Work First

Don Reinertsen in The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development [Rei09] suggested that we consider delivering work that takes little time to do, as a way to rank the work. That’s called Shortest Job First. Since we’re talking about knowledge work, I’m going to use “work” instead of “job.”

It’s a terrific idea, as long as you really have short work. And it’s a great idea if you have different lengths of work. That’s because you can push through some of the short work and get feedback before you attack the longer work.

Doing the shortest work first provides you quick wins. You might be able show people a walking skeleton, as described in ​Create a Walking Skeleton​, and ask for feedback. If they don’t like the skeleton, you haven’t invested too much time. And you can see finished work even if the work is not full feature sets.

The shortest-work-first approach works, as long as the time is short. By that, I mean not more than a couple of days in duration. I prefer no more than one day in duration. If the work takes more time, or if you have a ton of work that is all short and must be done now, consider using cost of delay to rank the work.