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My manager had a rule, that each member of the team was only allowed to have one unresolved ticket at the end of day. We had a weekly meeting where we would be

My manager had a rule, that each member of the team was only allowed to have one unresolved ticket at the end of day. We had a weekly meeting where we would be badgered about every >1 unresolved ticket and had to come up with an action plan to make sure it never happened again. So coincidentally, we would "forget" to create a ticket for every issue, that would take more than a day, until it was one day from completion.

praptak 8y ago
I do sometimes follow this rule. Caveat: it requires unassigninig tickets that I'm not actually working on. It makes some people cringe in horror but once you start doing that it does wonders.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Is the idea behind this "I can only focus on one thing at once, so unassigning myself allows someone else to take up the task in the intirim", or something else?
  - praptak 8y ago
    Mostly this. Obviously, this assumes shared understanding of assignments as "things I'm working on" rather than "queue of things and also commitment do to everything". Combining the original "one open ticket" rule with the second approach is rather bad. That's why I hope it was used in the context of the first approach.
achamayou 8y ago
What gets measured gets done. If closing lots of tickets is seen as productive, you not only get lots of very granular tickets, but all sorts of grouping tickets and epics as well!
jimjimjim 8y ago
This explains agile vs reality beautifully.
mongol 8y ago
But all things considered, was the situation improved by that rule? I understand that it could be worked around ("cheated") but did it bring benefits as well?
- throwaway9471 8y ago
  If someone has a reason for this rule, feel free to chime in. I believe it was an implicit way to tell us to do overtime off the books. Most of the issues, that took more than one day, couldn't realistically be completed in one day. Waiting on other parties, too many issues at once, low priority, etc. Occasionally, a ticket about something non-urgent, with no follow up from the business users, would get dredged up from the past to finally get worked on again. But I would attribute that to generally cleaning up unresolved ticket, rather than a benefit of the rule.
  - lotyrin 8y ago
    The theory would be that you can't have any more than one "thing I have started doing, and will resume doing first thing in the morning" which should be the meaning conveyed by "in progress" and everything else should be yet-untouched "backlog" or in a priority queue "prioritized" and therefore out-of-mind, or explicitly marked "blocked" with a comment about who or what is blocking it -- so that there's no question about why things aren't getting done or who is working on what (if everything on the board is sitting as "in progress") so people aren't over loaded, haven't bitten off more than they can chew, or have a bunch of things blocked but haven't raised their hand and spoken up about any of them (the typical dysfunctions).
userbinator 8y ago
This is another excellent example of how making rules only tends to encourage working around them. Things get done when they get done, and no amount of managerial bureaucracy will make things go faster.

praptak 8y ago

I do sometimes follow this rule. Caveat: it requires unassigninig tickets that I'm not actually working on. It makes some people cringe in horror but once you start doing that it does wonders.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Is the idea behind this "I can only focus on one thing at once, so unassigning myself allows someone else to take up the task in the intirim", or something else?
- praptak 8y ago
  Mostly this. Obviously, this assumes shared understanding of assignments as "things I'm working on" rather than "queue of things and also commitment do to everything". Combining the original "one open ticket" rule with the second approach is rather bad. That's why I hope it was used in the context of the first approach.

achamayou 8y ago

What gets measured gets done. If closing lots of tickets is seen as productive, you not only get lots of very granular tickets, but all sorts of grouping tickets and epics as well!

jimjimjim 8y ago

This explains agile vs reality beautifully.

mongol 8y ago

But all things considered, was the situation improved by that rule? I understand that it could be worked around ("cheated") but did it bring benefits as well?

throwaway9471 8y ago
If someone has a reason for this rule, feel free to chime in. I believe it was an implicit way to tell us to do overtime off the books. Most of the issues, that took more than one day, couldn't realistically be completed in one day. Waiting on other parties, too many issues at once, low priority, etc. Occasionally, a ticket about something non-urgent, with no follow up from the business users, would get dredged up from the past to finally get worked on again. But I would attribute that to generally cleaning up unresolved ticket, rather than a benefit of the rule.
- lotyrin 8y ago
  The theory would be that you can't have any more than one "thing I have started doing, and will resume doing first thing in the morning" which should be the meaning conveyed by "in progress" and everything else should be yet-untouched "backlog" or in a priority queue "prioritized" and therefore out-of-mind, or explicitly marked "blocked" with a comment about who or what is blocking it -- so that there's no question about why things aren't getting done or who is working on what (if everything on the board is sitting as "in progress") so people aren't over loaded, haven't bitten off more than they can chew, or have a bunch of things blocked but haven't raised their hand and spoken up about any of them (the typical dysfunctions).

userbinator 8y ago

This is another excellent example of how making rules only tends to encourage working around them. Things get done when they get done, and no amount of managerial bureaucracy will make things go faster.