What is slowing you down? Understanding the nature of blockers
Understanding the nature of blockers
Let’s delve into the world of blockers. In a nutshell, a blocker is a hurdle that impedes teams from achieving faster value delivery. These roadblocks can emerge from various sources, ranging from technical challenges and dependencies on other teams or individuals to shifting priorities, expedited work, evolving requirements, and even external factors beyond our control.
Allow me to illustrate some examples of these blockers:
Identifiable Blockers
These are the blockers we can foresee or identify in advance, usually associated with known dependencies, constraints, or risks within the project. Here are a few instances:
External Dependencies: These blockers arise when we rely on external teams, third-party services, or factors beyond our control. Delays or issues in these dependencies can severely impact our progress.
Resource Constraints: Blockers in this category arise when we face a shortage of vital resources, equipment, or infrastructure. Limited resources can significantly impede or even halt our progress.
Technical Challenges: These blockers stem from technical issues like bugs, infrastructure problems, or compatibility snags. They have the power to disrupt the development process and demand dedicated efforts to overcome.
Process Bottlenecks: Blockers in this category are interconnected with bottlenecks or inefficiencies within the process itself. Whether it’s unclear requirements, ineffective communication, or inadequate coordination among team members, handovers, these roadblocks slows down the process flow.
Unpredictable Blockers
As the name suggests, these blockers are the wildcards, impossible to predict or foresee in advance. They emerge unexpectedly, catching us off guard.
Emergent Risks: These are unforeseen risks that rear their heads during the project’s course. They may arise from changing market conditions, unforeseen technical complexities, or unexpected stakeholder requirements, throwing us off balance.
External Events: Blockers in this category are triggered by external events beyond our control, like natural disasters, regulatory changes, or sudden shifts in business priorities. These disruptive events can impact the delivery and we should adapt fast.
Unknown Dependencies: These blockers pop up when we stumble upon dependencies or interdependencies that were initially unidentified or unforeseen. They tend to surface as we delve deeper into the project, unearthing new dependencies along the way.
Team Member Availability: Unpredictable blockers can also emerge due to unforeseen circumstances impacting team members, such as sudden illnesses, personal emergencies, or unexpected departures. These disruptions can significantly impact the team’s capacity to deliver.
To proactively identify unpredictable blockers, we must adjust our way of working. It begins with recognizing the importance of risks and knowledge gaps. By identifying risks and assumptions upfront and addressing them head-on, we increase our chances of discovering issues early and adapting our processes accordingly. Unveiling the unknowns and challenging our assumptions is crucial. The key lies in fostering a culture of early identification and proactive communication within the team. By nurturing collaboration, transparency, and a shared responsibility for identifying and tackling blockers, we can minimise their impact and keep the project on track towards successful delivery.
When we view software development through the lens of investment, holding cost, and return on investment, a different perspective emerges. Each step of the process represents an investment, starting from problem identification, user research, and testing, all the way to refinement, development, quality assurance, and release. The return on investment occurs when we learn during the process and successfully release value.
Considering this perspective, we can theorise that a ticket that has progressed further in the process represents a greater investment by the team compared to those at the initial stages. However, the presence of a blocker can hinder our ability to capitalise on this investment and impede progress towards our goals.
By acknowledging the interconnected nature of investment, holding cost, and return on investment in software development, we gain a deeper understanding of the significance of promptly identifying and addressing blockers. Doing so allows us to optimise our investments and maximise the value derived from the process.
When we invest time and effort into removing blockers, we’re essentially safeguarding our investment. We liberate resources, eliminate bottlenecks, and empower the team to focus on delivering value. Actively resolving blockers enhances our ability to make the most of our project investments, ensuring that the value derived from the process is truly maximised.
Next: “Blocker Clustering: Enhancing our processes”
