Scope it before you fight it: naming a problem at work

There's a particular kind of work worry that doesn't have a shape. It isn't one task. It's a cloud. "Everything with the new client is a mess." "The team just isn't working." "I'm behind on all of it."

I've carried clouds like that for weeks without ever saying what they were.

So now, before I fight a problem at work, I scope it. It's the same idea as name it, tame it, with a few habits borrowed from people who plan complicated work for a living. Software teams have spent decades turning fog into finished work, and two well-tested ways of doing it are Scrum (described in the free Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland) and the Scaled Agile Framework, often called SAFe. You don't need to be on a software team to borrow their best plain ideas.

A cloud has no edges, so my mind fills them in, always generously. So I write two short lists. What's in:

• The last two invoices were paid late.
• Their main contact changed and I haven't met the new one.
• I'm not sure they liked the last piece of work.

And what's out:

• The work itself has mostly gone well.
• Nobody has said anything is wrong.

The "out" list is the one most of us skip, and it helps most. It draws a fence around the worry.

Scrum teams work towards a single goal for each short stretch of work. The Scrum Guide calls it "the single objective" for that stretch. One, not five.

I do the same. Out of everything in the cloud, what's the one thing that matters most right now? Here: "Get back on a good footing with this client."

Scrum also asks teams to agree a "definition of done" before they start, so nobody argues later about whether something is finished. SAFe has a similar habit when teams plan a few months ahead: they write short objectives describing what will be true by the end.

That phrase, what will be true by then, is the most useful thing I've borrowed. By the end of this month:

• I've had one proper conversation with the new contact.
• I've asked how the last piece landed, and heard the answer.
• The invoices are on time, or I know why they aren't.

A goal is still too big to do on a Tuesday. So I break it into pieces small enough to finish in one sitting: write to the new contact; book twenty minutes; make a list of questions. Each piece is either done or not done. No "sort of".

A timebox is a fixed amount of time you agree to spend, after which you stop and look. Scrum is built on them: short, fixed stretches of work with regular check-ins.

For a work worry, I give it a box too. "I'll spend thirty minutes on this now, then decide what's next." The worry no longer gets to take the whole afternoon.

Teams that use these methods often cap how many things they have on the go at once. They call it a work-in-progress limit. So I allow myself no more than three open pieces at a time. If I want to start a fourth, I finish one first.

Scrum teams meet for fifteen minutes a day to check progress towards the goal and adjust the plan. On my own, I do it in two minutes with my morning coffee: What moved yesterday? What's next today? Is anything in the way?

That last question matters. In Scrum, anything blocking progress is called an impediment, and someone's job is to get it removed. Naming it is the first step.

Sometimes the impediment is practical: "I don't have the new contact's number." Sometimes it's a feeling sitting under the problem. With the client, it was a small fear that I'd done something wrong and nobody was telling me. Once I named that, I could see it: a guess, not a fact. And the done list already had the fix. Ask.

A work problem is often a feeling wearing a suit. Name it, and it stops steering from the back seat.

At the end of each stretch, Scrum teams hold a retrospective: what went well, what didn't, what we'll change. SAFe does something similar at a larger scale, which it calls Inspect and Adapt.

Mine fits on a sticky note. When the cloud had cleared, I wrote: "Ask sooner. Don't wait for the worry to grow." That note is still on my desk.

Pick the work worry you've carried longest. On a sheet of paper, or the free "Name it" sheet, write what's in, what's out, one goal, and what will be true by the end of the month. Then pick one small piece, give it thirty minutes, and use the three steps if a feeling turns up on the way.

I'm not a doctor, and this isn't therapy. It's a way of seeing that helps me. If you are struggling, please talk to someone you trust or a professional.

You're no longer fighting fog. Scope it, then you can fight it. Name it, tame it.