Manage Issues

(Activity) for Tier: Product

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PURPOSE

Issues are trackable impediments that block the throughput of the team. They may affect many activities throughout the process. While most impediments can be managed quickly, without the need to document, some important or longer running issues need to be tracked in order to ensure proper closure and restoration of the team’s velocity.

PARTICIPATING ROLES

• ACCOUNTABLE

  • Project Manager

• RESPONSIBLE

  • Project Manager
  • Development Manager
  • Lead Developer
  • Test Manager
  • Release Manager
  • Scrum Master
  • User Experience Architect

INPUTS

• Issues

ENTRY CRITERIA

• An issue exists that cannot be resolved by a team and requires escalation to project or organizational management.

WHEN

Continuously throughout the life of the product.

SUB-ACTIVITIES

1. Determine Issue Threshold

   • The Team documents, within their procedures, the criteria for when an impediment is escalated to an issue. Common parameters include recurrence, length of time the impediment has existed, and criticality.
   • Criteria may vary by activity. For instance, the criteria to track an issue for requirements development may be different than that of a coding issues since blocking one activity may not have the same impact as another.
   • Pay particular attention to tracking issues relating to stakeholder involvement. These issues are the most common way to impact most projects.

2. Identify Issues

   • Issues can arise throughout the process. Using the team’s issue threshold, escalate impediments by creating an Issue Work Item and linking it, when applicable, to the impacted work item.
   • Assign the issue to a team member. Typically, this is someone who enables throughput of the team such as a leader or manager. The team may determine the most appropriate assignment.

3. Analyze Issues

   • Analyze the source of a reported issue and record it within an Issue Work Item. The analysis must be recorded and amplified as necessary within the description field of the issue work item. All teams are required to manage issues for at least one Classification source selection called ‘Stakeholder Involvement’. Issues that fall under other classification source selections are defined at the team’s discretion and maintained within the team’s procedures.
   • Pay particular attention to issues with the source of ‘Stakeholder Involvement’. This means that an important decision is blocked by a relevant stakeholder. Typically, this is a program or project authority and may relate to work approval. It may also relate to team members who are temporarily unable to address the issue.
   • The type of ‘Stakeholder Involvement’ must be noted in the Description field of the Issue Work Item for those issues involving external stakeholders. External stakeholders are identified under the stakeholder involvement section of the Project Plan.
   • Conduct Causal Analysis and record the results in the causal analysis field of the Issue Work Item. Use the Five Whys method to identify the root cause of the problem.
   • Once the root cause of an issue is determined corrective action/s are developed, recorded, and managed using task work items.

4. Resolve the Issue

   • Execute the corrective actions in order to resolve the issue.
   • Review the Conduct Product Decision Analysis & Resolution activity to determine if your Issue qualifies as a DAR trigger.

5. Review and Close the Issue

   • Review the issue with impacted stakeholders to ensure the corrective actions adequately resolved the issue.
   • Unblock any impeded work and close the issue work item.

6. Track Issues

   • Periodically track issues. Most issues can be tracked in the team’s daily stand-up meeting. If a stakeholder is not in attendance at the daily stand-up meeting, communicate the status of issues and corrective action tasks related to absent stakeholders in accordance with the Stakeholder Involvement section of the project plan.
   • Issues relating to specific activities may be tracked as a part of executing those activities. For instance, an issue related to backlog refinement may be reviewed within the Refine Backlog activity.
   • Record any status updates within the discussion notes of the issue or corrective action tasks.

EXIT CRITERIA

• An issue whose corrective action/s have been satisfied and confirmed as having resolved the problem.

OUTPUTS

• Closed issues
• Completed corrective action tasks

SEE ALSO

Process Guidance Version: 10.4