Stop committing to more work than your team can do
- James Louttit
- Jan 29
- 2 min read
Hi there,
Last week, we looked at the “Crawl” version of prioritisation:Just make a single, ordered list. No equals. Most important at the top.
That alone is powerful.
But once you’ve done that, the next step is the “Walk” version. And this is where things start to feel like a real project plan rather than just a to-do list. The Walk version is simple:
For example, you might estimate that your team of 6 people has about 30 days of effort available over the next two weeks - that is 50% of their time can be used for proactive work around all the meetings, holidays etc.
When you add up the work, only the top part of your list fits into that time, and everything else does not get done now, not because it isn’t important, but because reality has limits.  This is how you set expectations properly. Instead of saying, “Yes, we’ll do everything,” you can say, “These are the things we can realistically deliver in this period. These others will come later.” One small change makes this even more powerful: ask the people who will actually do the work to estimate it.
but the team who will be doing the work. You’ll get better estimates and far better ownership at the same time.
At this point, you move from saying, “I have a long list of must-haves,” to being able to say, “I have a realistic plan based on time, effort, and priorities.”
That’s the Walk stage.
Next week, we’ll look at the “Run” version, where we add business value into the mix and start making even better decisions about scope.
Here’s to low-stress success,James
P.S. This works really well at an individual level too - check out this 1-minute video on how to use this to manage your boss’s expectations and make sure you don’t get overloaded. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7038522760284798976/ Impactful Project Management, Dublin, Leinster, Ireland |
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