The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad20 Touko

When The Work Wont Fit, Make It a Shared Problem - Mike Cohn

When a team says, “We can’t do all of that by then,” many leaders make the same mistake:
They push harder.
They restate the deadline. They repeat the importance. They ask for more effort, more creativity, or more commitment.
But once the team has told you the work will not fit, pressure is usually the wrong next move.
Your job at that point is not to force a better answer.
Your job is to help find a better solution.
That starts by treating the gap as a *shared* problem.
Instead of asking, “Why can’t you do it?” ask:

What is making this too big?
What part is driving the complexity?
What would a good-enough version look like?
What could we defer and still get the outcome we need?

Those questions change the conversation.
Now the team is not defending an estimate. They are helping solve the business problem.
And that is where leaders add the most value.
Sometimes the issue is scope. Sometimes it's a dependency. Sometimes, one edge case is making everything larger than it needs to be.
Until you understand that, pushing for the original ask usually just creates a worse plan.
A smaller, smarter solution delivered on time is often far better than a bigger promise the team cannot actually keep.
So when the work will not fit, do not treat that as resistance.
Treat it as information.
The team is showing you where the real problem is.
Your role is to help decide what matters most, what can move, and what version solves the problem well enough for now.
Because planning works better when the request belongs to the leader, but the problem belongs to everyone.

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