Strategies for Handling a heavy workload in a small team

[xux42]

Continuing from my previous thread 'Hiding to nothing?', the data cleanup project I'm doing alongside the Prod Support role is going pretty well. The improvements are clear to see so all good there.

Unfortunately the Prod support work is still a big problem.
We are getting around 5 problem tickets a day for a system that should be stable but is not and is also functionally deficient so we have regular patches to apply to carry out activities that the business need.
Now most are quick fixes, but maybe 1 or 2 a day are more substantial pieces of work needing extensive testing that takes between a couple of hours and a couple of weeks testing. Sometime the fixes we receive from the vendor have to go back several times.

Anyway the team is 1 Permie tech team leader and 2 contractors, all of us are seasoned UK/Eire IT'ers. We are attempting to deal with a workload about 2/3 of that of a very similar team I was in at a UK Bank. That team had 6 good, full time techies and a part time manager who managed the workload and handled all the user and mgt crap.

We are, unsurprisingly, failing to do the work of 4.5 people. Unfortunately the ultimate boss just complains about the lack of progress with the backlog. We have tried to hint that it might be resourcing but we get nowhere and he doesn't come up with any suggestions about how we could streamline, or anything else. We set priorities but all that happens there is the 'low' priority stuff languishes until a user loses patience and there is an enquiry about why the hell we have had that task for so long.
Also with only 3 people, sickness, holidays, unexpected absences are all a right pain.
With a team of 7 we took these things in our stride.

Frustration abounds.

So, any suggestions as to
a) how we can make our glorious leader understand that more resource is needed or
b) what will solve this instead of more resource - we are experienced people and are really stumped as to how we can give this guy what he wants.

BTW, one answer would be to work 11 hour days but screw that, we are doing 8-9 and getting paid for 7.5. That's already too much unpaid overtime in my book.

I could just leave but the folks here are nice, notwithstanding the above, and Guernsey is lovely.

Thanks as always..

[Gentile]

In descending order of facetiousness, your options are:

1. Send him this image:
   
   
   
   
   Accompany it with a paragraph that includes the sentence "you can't get two pints into a half pint pot".
   
   
2. If you're not using one already, use a time management tool that allows incoming workload to be allocated across the team, work to be prioritised, and enables management to see progress. TFS is good. If your ClientCo can't afford that, this one here only costs $240 and isn't bad. If they can't afford that, how on earth can they afford you?
   
   
3. Keep calm, and keep invoicing. Chances are the person that keeps making unreasonable requests secretly knows they are being unreasonable. But they wouldn't feel important enough if they didn't ask the impossible every so often just because they can. They probably watched too much Star Trek as a kid, and believed it when Kirk magically enabled Scotty to do the impossible each week merely by restating how critical his request was and imploring him to do so.

[d000hg]

There is no answer, other than to prioritize. Prioritize what new functionality has to be done against what bugs have to be fixed. Prioritize time spent proper testing against the number of bugs you'll miss if you don't.

Hinting to the boss is no good, you need to flat out tell him the team is too small for the workload. And ask him why you can't get more people - simply budget or something else? The customer might not mind spending more to get more done.

[psychocandy]

I can understand you want to do a good job and it can be stressful when this happens but, at the end of the day, isn't this the clients problem?

If they chose to under-resource and upset their customers then that's their problem not yours. You're a paid resource to do a job - you can only do so much.

To be honest, I dont think I'd be working too many extra hours either. Just because they wont pay for an extra head aint your problem at the end of the day.

Happens all the time. Number of times I've given client opinion on how things should work and I've been proven right months later. BUT if they don't listen then its up to them if they want to screw things up.

Am I bothered? Not in the slightest. Why should I worry about it? I acted professionally and did all I could. They chose to ignore- not my fault. Crack on.

[acontractor]

In one of my previous Permie. role my Line manager keep saying they "want to hire" more staff but never did ( I guess it was a carrot at the end of the stick to make sure we dont leave). Instead they keep hiring people from freelance sites like oDesks/elance ($10 /hour!!!) and ended up missing deadlines by months. They seems to think that Contractors are expensive glorified developers instead they can get some one from east europe for $10 / hour . In reality because of these cheap resources they lost potential clients and revenue. Its simple accounting you need to spend money to make one. If your PM does not understand this simple math then there is nothing you can do about it.

Keep invoicing....

[expat]

Leave.

The boss will then realise that the team is under-resourced, and get in 3 people not as good as you, paying each of them 50% more than you. And think that he did right.

[Notascooby]

I don't think you need anything as sophist as mingle but a kanban "like" approach is the way to go.

You workout what workload your team can accomodate on a weekly / fortnightly or whatever period or "sprint" you fancy then get the manager to manage the backlog of work and the prioritisation.

It's his role to liase with the business and to decide when low priority items get bumped up the priorities when they've sat waiting.

Tell the manager that your team would be more efficient if you were left to get on with the work, therefore no requests come to you, only through your manager.

You make clear that if the manager throws in a curve-ball then something else will need to be dropped as you can only handle X amount of work within a period.

At the start of each period, you sit down with your manager and estimate the top items on the backlog as prioritised by the manager (its up to him to juggle the priorities). You then work out how many of these can fit into X and agree that's you deliverables for the period.

He wants to add something in, then he needs to take something out. And he needs to realise that he can't magically replace a 3 point piece of work with another 3 point piece if you've already invested 2 points worth of effort - i.e that's been burnt and you have 1 point left.

It should become very obvious very quickly that if the new work coming in equals X+5 and you can only handle X then he needs a new resource(s) to handle this.

[expat]

...
You make clear that if the manager throws in a curve-ball then something else will need to be dropped as you can only handle X amount of work within a period.

At the start of each period, you sit down with your manager and estimate the top items on the backlog as prioritised by the manager (its up to him to juggle the priorities). You then work out how many of these can fit into X and agree that's you deliverables for the period.

He wants to add something in, then he needs to take something out. And he needs to realise that he can't magically replace a 3 point piece of work with another 3 point piece if you've already invested 2 points worth of effort - i.e that's been burnt and you have 1 point left.

It should become very obvious very quickly that if the new work coming in equals X+5 and you can only handle X then he needs a new resource(s) to handle this.

Manager: we need to do this too, ASAP
Me: We're already at 100%. If you want to add something to the workload, you need to take something out.
Manager: Can't do that I'm afraid.
Me: We just can't do X+5 in the time it takes for X.
Manager: We have to, we don't have any choice.


Now where did I go wrong in that conversation, apart from getting myself into it in the first place?

[Notascooby]

Manager: we need to do this too, ASAP
Me: We're already at 100%. If you want to add something to the workload, you need to take something out.
Manager: Can't do that I'm afraid.
Me: We just can't do X+5 in the time it takes for X.
Manager: We have to, we don't have any choice.


Now where did I go wrong in that conversation, apart from getting myself into it in the first place?

Get a bucket and fill it with water - right to the brim
Then get a full pint glass and fill it with water.
Hand the pint glass to the manager and tell him when he can add the contents of the pint glass to the full bucket without spilling it, you'll be able to do the extra work.

Now show him that with a second bucket, not only do have the space for the water but you actually have slack to take on more if required, or to fill both buckets to a safe level where they're not indanger of being spilt.

If he doesn't get the analogy, then hold his head in the full bucket until his body stops moving.

HTH

[acontractor]

Manager: we need to do this too, ASAP
Me: We're already at 100%. If you want to add something to the workload, you need to take something out.
Manager: Can't do that I'm afraid.
Me: We just can't do X+5 in the time it takes for X.
Manager: We have to, we don't have any choice.


Now where did I go wrong in that conversation, apart from getting myself into it in the first place?

You may be surprised to know that you are not the only one who has to deal with almost the exact situation. This a classic example of poor management of human resources and money. PM who suppose to translate technical requirements and deadlines and pass to top management , fails to do that because of incompetency.

Move on ... until then; keep on invoicing....