Did you ever had a problem resolving too many tasks being prioritized? Do you see team members confused over what to do next? Maybe you find yourself micromanaging the team?

Let me tell you how to easily solve all problems mentioned above with Kanban.

I have a problem to prioritize development projects

One of the main problems product owners (PO) face is when the team is not doing the right thing in the right moment. The end result will surprise everybody.

Other problem is when team members constantly ask the PO what to do next. Why bother the PO?

Your customer/PO is micromanaging and telling people what to do and when? This should not be the case.

There is a low, medium, high priority and also very high, super high and uber high. It seems that you have too many priorities?

I wish it would be like this

The customer/PO doesn’t need to check with the team to make sure things are done in correct order. Don’t even bother them.

The team is clearly informed about priorities and confusion is not our companion. Nobody in the team relies on customer/PO presence to proceed.

Your job is to align communication flow. The team and PO have a comfort of work and focus on their task, not on communication.

Give more time to customer so he can use for his business. The customer/PO should use their time to do important things, not micromanage the team.

Solution: How to prioritize your development process

With Kanban you can deal with all the prioritization issues you’re facing, in a surprisingly easy way. Instead of prioritizing, by giving labels (low, medium, high), order tickets by priority — in the backlog/to do column — from the top to the bottom.

Problem solved! Really? Let’s examine:

PO can simply reorder tasks on the board at anytime when priorities change. That way he is in control.

Even better, If you have a physical Kanban board the whole team can instantly see the change in priorities. Boards are very cheap and a valuable Kanban tool. Get one!

There is no need to use labels and no issues with team not delivering high priority tasks. The team can manage itself. No need to ask the product owner anymore.

Go deeper with prioritization of your development tasks

You can give the team members some freedom and let them pick one of the tasks from the top, which is better for teams with different roles. That will help empower the team.

If you make an explicit rule: A free team member always has to pick the task from the top — not only it will ensure the tasks are done in the correct order, but it will also push team towards collaborative code ownership — second is better, but not always instantly possible.

This is just a fragment of the Kanban development process we implement at EL Passion.

How are you prioritizing your development tasks? Have something to add in order to help prioritize development projects? The comments are open.