Your sprints planned, the goals are set and progress is going well, then out of nowhere you receive a panicked message from another team who need you to drop everything and work on their priorities instead? 

Sometimes, this can’t be helped but mostly, the problem can be linked to a lack of forward planning and communication between the teams. 

Don’t be the person making the last minute request, it’s not a good look and will not make you popular at the Christmas party.

If you are living sprint to sprint and don’t have a forward roadmap, then you will probably fall into this trap more often than you would like.

Here are three ways to avoid this:

• Try to look 2-3 sprints ahead and be aware of any dependencies that you have on other teams.
• More importantly than just being aware, try and solve the dependencies so they improve flow in the system. 
• Make sure your plans are visible to others so they know and can assess their own work.

If you need some help achieving this, drop me a message and I can help you out.