Work Split

If people too close to the problem are escalating their problems, either as a "pork barrel" issue or as something well-intentioned, then split work into an urgent and deferred component, with less than half of development work in the urgent half.undefined

To be applied before

 * Completion Headroom and Implied Requirements are inputs for Work Split.

To be applied after

 * on failure of Work Split, use Recommitment Meeting.
 * if you have problems with Work Split, use Work Queue.

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

Context
... a work group commits to resolve and deliver Implied Requirements in the most timely and satisfactory way they can find. They are not committed to specific dates.

Problem
A work group has an obligation to make its efforts visible through what becomes the ultimate trouble signal, low Completion Headroom. Headroom disappears when developmental activities fail to match those of Comparable Work. A common problem is the well-meaning escalation of requirements by people too close to a problem.

Solution
Divide a task into an urgent and deferred component such that no more than half of the developmental work is in the urgent half. Defer more if required to acquire sufficient Completion Headroom. Defer analysis and design of parts that won’t be implemented. This advise runs counter to conventional wisdom.

Discussion
Often a split is just a way to get back to the basic work that had been originally planned. Both halves of the split will appear in the Work Queue with distinctly different urgency.

The split should be based on clear business priorities or should otherwise be rooted in agreed values. Ian Graham has written patterns that combine to form a small pattern language (drawn from a larger pattern language) to address this issue. See the patlets for Estabilish The Business Objectives, Business Process Model, and Gradual Stiffening.

A version of this pattern first appeared in [Cunningham1996].