Tip #28 - Plan less and deliver more using WIP limit in Zoho Sprints

Tip #28 - Plan less and deliver more using WIP limit in Zoho Sprints



Hello,

It's been a while since we met with a quick, interesting tip. As the saying goes, "Too much of anything is good for nothing", today the focus is on delivering your outcomes with the right amount of planning. Your plan should be practical, calculative, and achievable for driving a qualitative success. 
 
Laura's plan
 
Laura has a habit of planning her project deliverables before assigning work to her team-mates. Once the plan is finalized, she schedules a general meeting with her team and assigns every member with a list of work items to accomplish. These work items run across different sprints. However, the team fails to accomplish a few of the work items as planned and the project runs overdue. Here, the problem lies in the ‘Planning’ stage where Laura predefined a plan without a proper analysis of her team’s capacity. 

Laura's plan becomes a problem
 
Replanning the same process over and over is cumbersome and your outcome would stand nowhere. Laura's problem is neither related to the work items nor her team members. The problem falls in the  PLAN and not the  DELIVERABLE. 
 
Laura's problem analysis phase

Laura's plan requires an intensive analysis before meeting with her team. She can streamline her analysis with:
  • Release notes: Analyze the total number of resolved and unresolved items in the completed sprints using release notes.
  • Team velocity: Track the average velocity of the team that determines the capacity of the sprint team to accomplish the assigned tasks. 
    • User based velocity: Track the individual user's velocity and determine the number of work items they can accomplish in a sprint. 
  • Cumulative flow diagram: Monitor the status based on the number of work items assigned in each status using the CFD chart. 
Post-analysis - Laura implements the Work In Progres limit (WIP)
 
Each status on the scrum board determines the sprint's success. You cannot add 100 work items in your 'To Do' status and later run them across different statuses. A proper planning of each status is crucial when it comes to delivering a sprint. WIP limit solves Laura's problem.



Using WIP limit
 
Each status can be set with a maximum and minimum value. This will help the team to stay organized. All the status will have a defined amount of work items without getting overloaded. It can also help:
  • If a single user is assigned with more work items in a particular status, the sprint manager can reassign it to the user with minimum work items.
  • If a status is overloaded, you can move items to the least occupied status to keep the balance. (For example, if you've 50 work items in 'In progress' status, you can move a few work items to the 'To do' status to maintain the balance.)
    • Number of work items
    • Number of work items including sub items
    • Number of work items including assignees
    • Number of work items including subitems and assignees 
Laura doesn't have to spend hours of planning, instead she can set WIP limit and deliver a better outcome. If you're a team struggling to organize a predefined plan and run your sprints, use WIP limit and make your work easier than before. 

Before we wind up, we are happy to appreciate the contributor for our previous spotlight. 



PS: Your feedback will help us for the betterment. Please comment your suggestions or queries below, we will get in touch with you. 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #28 - Plan less and deliver more using WIP limit in Zoho Sprints

      Hello, It's been a while since we met with a quick, interesting tip. As the saying goes, "Too much of anything is good for nothing", today the focus is on delivering your outcomes with the right amount of planning. Your plan should be practical, calculative, and achievable for driving a qualitative success.    Laura's plan   Laura has a habit of planning her project deliverables before assigning work to her team-mates. Once the plan is finalized, she schedules a general meeting with her team and

    • Tip # 3- Working on the Scrum board

      Continuing from our Tip #2 on leading to a sprint, let's see how to manage the work items on the Scrum board.  Once you start the sprint your work items are automatically displayed on the Scrum board where you will actually manage the work items. It is a snapshot of the backlog items identified for the current sprint.    The layout of the Scrum board Simply put, the scrum board is just like a physical board with sticky notes on which the work items of the active sprint are displayed.  The scrum board

    • Tip#2- Leading you to a Sprint

      Product Backlog After the user stories are written and finalized, they are sorted to create the Product Backlog for the project during the Backlog Grooming meeting. This is a master list of all the work items that have been identified for the project and sorted by priority. Requirements are not constant during this period.The Product Backlog is dynamic and is an ongoing process. Every user story in the Product Backlog is customer centric. The Product Backlog includes: User centric stories based on

    • Tip #1- Why swimlanes?

      Lanes define a clear path to reach your destination. In Agile, swimlane is one such concept that sets a simple and clear process of the work that you do.   The concept of swimlane can be related to the pool, where the swimmers gather in their respective lanes to start off. Similar to the pool, work items are grouped in different categories. Each category is referred as a lane and is displayed in horizontal format. Swimlanes are effective in categorizing the work items with respective to specific

    • Recent Topics

    • Display duplicate image canvas

      Now in canvas view image field, It will display both normal and conditional styling image. Please help with this bug.

    • Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

      Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

    • Portal orders

      Is it possible to set up an ordering system through the portal so that my customers can place orders through their portal?

    • CLIENT PORTAL (If clients can place orders directly on the portal)

      Zoho client portal is excellent. Everything is there except one thing. Client should be able to place orders directly on the portal. This would enhance the portal and end users will be extremely happy. This suggestion infact came from one of our client.

    • Portal Default View

      Hello! My company is about roll out portals for some users, but we were wondering if it was possible to set the Record Detail Page View to default to a custom view that we made. That way the information they need would be streamlined and easier to see.

    • Macro Email to be determined by a ticket field

      Hi, we are a commercial energy brokerage and are implementing Desk as our helpdesk tool to replace manual emails, personal whataspp and telephone. We have setup a macro rule when we can trigger an email, update ticket status and trigger a task.... but

    • Welcome Link Expired

      Hi The links sent to the users didn't get clicked on in time and now all the links have expired. Is there a way to send a new link without deleting them and re-adding them>

    • Custom view for Milestones

      Hi, Just an idea for the future... would it be possible to create custom views for the Milestones view under Work Overview ? I usually need to look at this view filtered by project group but the filter doesn't remain when navigating away. A custom view

    • Zoho expense linked with Campaign instead of customers

      Hi, Is there a development planned for linked an expense or a report to a zoho campaign? Indeed, suppose I created a campain in which I add different clients (for example a trip to a foreign country where I meet 3 different clients), I would like this campaign to be linked to the expenses I have. Say I have a plane ticket, taxis and 1 hotel night, I would like those expenses to be linked to the 3 clients. With Zoho expense, it is not possible at the time (or maybe it is but I do not know how!). thanks

    • 🎄 Jingle, Mingle, and Automate: Spread Christmas Cheer with Zoho Desk Auto-Replies! 🎄

      Hello Everyone! Welcome to this week's episode of the Community Learning Series. Christmas is in the air, and I’m sure we can all feel the jingle and the mingle of the season! The folks at Zylker Techfix are no exception—they’re busy with holiday plans

    • How to Iterate a Function in Zoho Desk Workflow with Delay Between Calls?

      Hi everyone, I’m working on a function in Zoho Desk that searches for a specific ticket record. If the ticket is not found, I need to retry the search multiple times with a delay between each attempt until the ticket is located or a maximum number of

    • Making Calls Using ZDialer on Zoho Creator Widgets

      The Zdialer Browser Extension does not seem to recognize phone numbers on custom widgets. What is the best way to work around this?

    • Adjusting Physical Inventory

      Not getting very far with support on this one, they say they are going to fix it but nothings happened since November. Please give this a thumbs up if you would like to see this feature or comment if you have some insight. Use Case: Inventory set to be

    • Print PO receipt

      Hi I would like to print the PO receipt. There does not seem to be any way to do this. I track batch numbers and printing the PO does not show this. Only the receipt would show the details of the receipt. Currently I print the screen which does not have

    • Create a purchase order in vendor's currency

      I am having a problem working this out and would appreciate some suggestions. We have Books and Inventory working in tandem. We are in Australia, our product is sold in Australia in $A and obviously all our invoices, accounts and reports need to be in

    • Time Field

      Good Day, I have a question, when I save a draft and reload it. Why does the time field format keeps goes from hh:mm to hh:mm:ss? Is there a way I can force it to load to hh:mm only? I have tried example = totime(input.TimeField, "hh:mm") in the -created

    • Work Orders / Bundle Requests

      Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of

    • Getting error during inserting a record in form of zoho people using zoho api

      import requests import json # Set your access token and Zoho People API base URL access_token = '1000.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' api_base_url = 'https://people.zoho.in/people/api/' # Set the form name and data to be inserted form_link_name

    • Display your zoho contact name when they call your mobile number

      As per the title If a contact calls the office number, the contacts name shows on mobile as long as I have their contact details registered in my crm. Is there a way that if the contact calls my mobile, their name can be displayed? Currently just their number shows when they call.

    • Change script to add fields

      Hi, I have a custom function (writen by a different implementation company in the beginning) which I would like to edit to add a different field as well. Can't get it to work on my own though. - The script now adds the address fields to a new quote (needs

    • 1 API to all channel

      hi zoho team: I am the product manager of anywheel, we are planning to integrate zoho, we want to integrate multiple channels through 1 API, please can you send me the integration document and guideline?

    • Custom Profile Agents Unable to Update Mandatory Phone Number in tickets under Zoho Desk

      Hi, While working in the Ticket module in Zoho Desk, agents with a custom profile are unable to update the Phone Number field (which is mandatory) under Account Information. The agents need to enter values such as "NA" or "Nil" in the field to close the

    • Revamped Print in Zoho Sheet—customized for paper

      The latest enhancements to Zoho Sheet's Print settings allows you to print a worksheet or a selected range, with customizations that make the data comprehensible, even on paper.   Customize header and footer Make your spreadsheets meaningful with a relevant header and footer. You can now choose to display the file name, sheet name, current page number, total pages, date, and time as the header and footer in your print view. Besides the predefined elements, you can also give a custom text for header/footer.

    • Adding Bluesky channel

      Hello, Is Bluesky (AT protocol) soon added on Social ? Bluesky is being developped and is now open to anyone (no more invitation) Thank you

    • How Can i put a form in Zobot

      Hi,how can i integrate a form which has a multiple options to choose from.the form should be opened or displayed by zobot after it meets a requirement in the conversation. Thanks in advance !

    • Query table pull last 12 months

      I am tying to pull the following criteria and the date is always what causes me the issue. I want to pull people (pco_id) who have entries of "event_id" being these 2 events and whos "kind" is Regular or Guest and where the event_starts_at (date column)

    • Unified customer portal login

      As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that

    • Response Violation - Zoho Desk

      Hi Team, I just need an information regarding the zoho desk - Response Violation and how can we avoid the tickets from getting the tickets response violated.

    • message on click of button

      Hi, i added insert task on 'Quick view' below  'Action'  of report just below 'Delete' button,  so i am trying to add a message on click of button that, "This item is now added into Pending Request" like this .... So, how can i achieve this ; because

    • Is it possible to disable Chat Waiting Time, or to make it indefinite?

      We have used many online chat services over the years. However, Zoho's SalesIQ appears to be the only one we've tried that has a mandatory time limit where we must respond to new customer queries. We are a small business so we have no dedicated staff

    • Access CRM Variables from Formula field

      Is it possible to use a CRM variable (defined in Developer Space -> CRM Variables) in a formula field for calculations ?

    • Client Script: $Client.refresh({ triggerOnLoad: true }); not triggering onLoad Client Scripts

      Hey friends! I'm trying to store a temporary var, refresh the page for the user, then check that temporary var and do some actions. Theoretically using the title's code: $Client.refresh({ triggerOnLoad: true }); should refresh the page and trigger on

    • Super Admin login to delete certain folders and passwords and clearing the trash folder, they are still appearing on my dashboard

      Hi Zoho Team, I need help with an issue I've encountered. Despite using the Super Admin login to delete certain folders and passwords and clearing the trash folder, they are still appearing on my dashboard. I would like to understand why this is happening

    • Pulling Specific Products from Sales Orders in Books to a CRM Record

      We currently process orders directly through our website (woocommerce) as well as through manual sales orders in zoho books. When an order comes through the website, all of the individual products from that order show up in the CRM record of that customer.

    • Automatically add a retainer to every estimate

      Hi all, I've been trying to find a way to automatically add a retainer at a set % to every estimate we create and send. So far I haven't been successful, does anyone know of a way to do this? Thanks,

    • Clear String field based on the value of other field

      Hello everyone, We would like to be able to clear a string field (delete whatever has been written and make it empty) when another field (picklist) is changed to a specific value. While I can empty other types of fields, I noticed that I can't do this

    • Custom Deal Name in Lead Conversion Mapping

      I know there are ways to change the name of a Deal after conversion using a custom function, so no need to repost that information. I would like to see the CRM Improved with Deal Name Customisation and I think the Lead Conversion Mapping page would be

    • Within the Basic KPI component in Analytics, it is impossible to set "next" day range as a filter

      Hi there, I am currently setting up a deal dashboard for the Sales team. While it is possible to filter deal records to show records that were created LAST X days only, it looks like a NEXT X days Closing date filter is not available. Would it be possible

    • Invoice status on write-off is "Paid" - how do I change this to "Written off"

      HI guys, I want to write off a couple of outstanding invoices, but when I do this, the status of the invoices shows as "Paid". Clearly this is not the case and I need to be able to see that they are written off in the customer's history. Is there a way

    • For each loop with available time slots

      I am very new to Deluge, and this question was unable to be answered by Zoho Creator tech support upon request. Task at hand: I have a Form with 4 fields: - Date Start - Date End - Dropdown: Time Start: contains time slots (12:00PM, 12:15PM, etc) - Dropdown:

    • Next Page