Object Mentor Blog: Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle

Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle

tottinger — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:15:00 -0500

We had a team of surrogate stakeholders in the room, and all the very most important stories (as far as we could tell) on a table in front of us.

“These are the most important?” Heads nodded. “Then,” I asked, “what makes them important?” Brows furrowed, and well-considered answers poured forth.

I collected their reasons for importance. Some were about keeping promises, some were about providing increased quality (uptime, correct function), and there were other kinds of importance. We wrote them on a 3×5 card. Ultimately, we realized that the company’s reputation is their source of importance. Users needed to know that the company will do the right things, and provide software that worked and kept them working. I thought it was a good criteria.

Next I explained that urgency is different from importance. There may be a hot demand for some cosmetic changes that don’t really impact the company’s reputation one way or another. There may be some changes that in the direction we want to go. These may be hot topics, but may not be truly important.

We could see a difference between the forces of urgency and the force of importance, but there is gray area as a sufficient pent-up demand for otherwise unimportant changes could in fact effect our reputation for service. Still, we could usually see a crisp-enough boundary for any given user story.

I then (re-)introduced the team to Stephen Covey’s four-quadrant system. It has two axes. The vertical is importance (important at the top, unimportant below). The horizontal is urgency with urgent things to the left and non-urgent on the right:

Q1 Important and Urgent	Q2 Important, not Urgent
Q3 Unimportant and Urgent	Q4 Neither important nor urgent

We took our set of cards and the team determined groupings. Was this a quadrant one activity? Quadrant 3? Quadrant 2? There were some real surprises, especially when we realized our “most important” bit of work was not urgent and should wait until quadrant one activities were finished.

Covey’s recommendation is that we tackle first those items that are both important and urgent. When we knock that stack down, we move on to those that are important but not urgent. If we have time left, those non-important-but-urgent items can “fly standby” in our sprint. We reordered the priorities in accordance with Covey’s recommendation.

We had no cards that were both unimportant and non-urgent.

At this point in time, we had what looked very much like a magic funnel. Ideas came in from everywhere, and the items that moved from the planning team to the developers came out in the “magically correct” order. We agreed that the selection and the ordering were the best we could do at the time.

Our next sprint planning meeting was remarkably efficient.

"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by liding rode

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:23:34 -0500

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Thu, 13 May 2010 06:48:40 -0500

A miracle is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles. Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle.

"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by Love Click

Mon, 03 May 2010 06:55:32 -0500

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Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:25:04 -0500

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"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by annie2278

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:44:19 -0600

We agreed that the selection and the ordering were the best we could do at the time.Good choice is a good start.

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"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by Mike Polen

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:48:34 -0500

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Thanks, Mike

"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by Greg Mohr

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:34:47 -0500

Apologies for stating the obvious, but I think your quadrants need a mirror. You wrote, “urgent things to the right, and non-urgent on the left,” but the quadrants are shown in reverse along that axis. Petty, I’m sure, and it doesn’t change the value inherent in the idea.

I’ve seen the same 4-box model suggested with different axes (for example, replacing urgency with difficulty). The axes probably need to be flexible to change with the environment, but I think the four quadrant priority scheme is very useful, especially if it exposes anything in quadrant 4.

Ah, you’re right, and I switched it. Thanks.— Tim

"Magic Funnel, Part 3: Covey's Miracle" by Vasco Duarte

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:05:40 -0500

The quadrant idea is quite good to explain the real meaning of priority to stakeholders, however I find that to get them to cooperate on defining the priority (where there’s more than one stakeholder), the pattern described here is also quite good.