Completion Headroom

If work is progressing against a set of hard dates, then make sure there is Completion Headroom between the completion dates of the largest task and the hard delivery dates.undefined

To be applied after

 * On failure of Completion Headroom, use Recommitment Meeting.
 * If you have problems with Completion Headroom, use Work Queue or Work Split.

Alternatives

 * See also Take No Small Slips.

Contents of following sections belong to the original Organizational Patterns website and have been divided into following parts: Context, Problem, Solution, Discussion.

Context
...work is progressing as the software unfolds and the team learns more about the system from the customer and from the behavior of the system itself. Things are far enough along to start thinking about delivery, and about delivering what can be delivered to the customer on the agreed delivery date

Problem
Every project must commit to delivery on a few hard and fast dates. This is actually fortunate because it is about the only way to get out of work that is going poorly. It’s also important because it’s usually more important to deliver something on a specified date even than to deliver everything that was anticipated: when is often more important than what. A Work Split provides the graceful exit by allowing one to defer the portion of work that is not understood or going poorly while saving the part that does work or will save face. A Work Split does require some advance notice since some portion of the work must still be completed before deadline.

Solution
Project work group completion dates from remaining effort estimates in the Work Queue Report [Cunningham1996]. Take the largest of the earliest completion dates for each work group and compare it to any hard delivery date that may apply. The difference is your Completion Headroom.

Any group has an obligation to make their efforts visible through what becomes the ultimate trouble signal, low Completion Headroom. Headroom disappears when developmental activities fail to match those of Comparable Work [Cunningham1996].

Discussion
In order for Completion Headroom to work, it is vital to calculate it from the beginning, and recalculate it often, at least weekly. Watch for trends. Headroom will often jitter plus or minus a day or two from week to week. But steady evaporation of headroom for any work group is a sure indicator for management attention. You have at your disposal reordering the Work Queue, possibly deferring whole items to later release, the Work Split already mentioned, or the public embarrassment of a Recommitment Meeting.

A common problem is the well-meaning escalation of requirements by people too close to a problem. If you track Completion Headroom, you are better in a position to assess the impact of adding these requirements to the project.