« again on the story wall… the hold zone

Yesterday I’ve got a nice comment from JK on the previous blog post about the story wall and we talked a bit about our story walls (he’s a the same client but on a different project).

I didn’t realise we both have an hold zone at the bottom of the story wall, for blocked stories/stories on hold.

He pointed out and I totally agree that that is the most dangerous thing you can do.

Stories are prioritised top down, putting them down there it’s like saying that they have no value, low priority. 
That horizontal section is also so low that you almost don’t see them.

At that point I’ve realised that we actually had that section, I’m still shocked I didn’t remove it earlier in the project!

So, what is JK doing in his team now? He keeps the stories on hold on the same position as they were, with a visible block-sticker on them.

With that he is avoiding:

a) the mistake of forgetting a story
b) the mistake of change the priority of a story for no reason

He’s achieving more visibility on the blockers in the project and with few blockers on a lane it will be hard to pull more stories there, so you will be naturally forced to solve those blocking issues. (a bit of TIC always helps)