LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
A team with unpredictable incidents and planned improvements needs visibility of both demand types. Reserving all capacity for projects does not remove incidents; it makes forecasting unrealistic. Define how urgent work enters, who decides exceptions, and which commitment is displaced. Inspect completion and item aging alongside task starts. If development accelerates while validation accumulates work, optimizing development alone can increase waiting. The aim is to improve the end-to-end outcome with visible capacity limits and dependencies.
Guided application
Use retrospectives to select a concrete change and check its effect. “Improve communication” needs to become, for example, a decision record confirmed by participants. Assign follow-up, agree a review date, and observe whether contradictory decisions decreased. If three iterations depended on extra nights, revisit commitments and causes rather than counting exceptional effort as guaranteed capacity. A method change should address the observed problem. The same calendar can work for a product team and fail for a support team with different demand.
If six improvements and four incidents compete for the same people, show all ten items and priority decisions rather than maintaining two plans assuming the same full capacity.
Common pitfalls
Copying rituals without context; hiding RUN; optimizing one stage while worsening the next; repeating actions without checking effects.
Related topics: Lead and remove impediments · Align goals and participation
Adapt the method using demand, capacity, and observed outcomes.
Reference: Work in process limits · PMI-ACP ECO March 2026