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Standard : Work in progress reflects current business priorities

Purpose and Strategic Importance

This standard ensures that the active work being done consistently reflects current business priorities, keeping teams focused on what matters most. It promotes agility, reduces wasted effort, and accelerates value delivery.

Aligned to our "Limit Work in Progress (WIP)" and "Outcome-Driven Development" policies, this standard helps teams adapt quickly to shifting needs. Without it, misaligned work undermines strategic goals, slows feedback, and wastes resources.

Strategic Impact

Clearly defined impacts of meeting this standard include improved delivery flow, reduced risk, higher system resilience, and better alignment to business needs. Over time, teams will see reduced rework, faster time to value, and stronger system integrity.

Risks of Not Having This Standard

  • Reduced ability to respond to change or failure
  • Accumulation of technical debt or friction
  • Poor developer experience and morale
  • Decreased confidence in releases and features
  • Misalignment between technical implementation and business priorities

CMMI Maturity Model

  • Level 1 – Initial: Work in progress is driven by availability or personal preference.

  • Level 2 – Managed: Teams try to align work with goals but rely on manual prioritisation.

  • Level 3 – Defined: Work is scoped and prioritised based on evolving business priorities.

  • Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed: Work alignment is measured and adjusted through regular reviews.

  • Level 5 – Optimising: Prioritisation is dynamic, data-driven, and continuously refined in response to business feedback.


Key Measures

  • Adoption metrics relevant to the standard (to be defined)
  • Quality, throughput, and system health metrics aligned to capability
  • Maturity scores based on structured assessment
Associated Policies
  • Limit Work in Progress (WIP)
Associated Practices
  • Error Budget Policies
  • Trunk-Based Development
  • SLOs, SLIs, and SLAs
  • Feature Toggles (Flags)
  • Release Orchestration Tools

Technical debt is like junk food - easy now, painful later.

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