How do you choose what to work on next for a customer?
If you have a long backlog it can get somewhat dicey. Try to keep balanced between working on longer term tasks and knocking out small requests as you go. This can be tricky depending on how you code and what you are working on.
If you are working on a large feature update that is taking weeks to complete, it is best if you are not blocked from doing bug fixes and other work on the live system while you are coding.
Two different techniques I use:
- When possible, keep coding a long term feature making sure it is not enabled yet for the end users. For example, when I was working on a feature to change job objects from having one address to multiple addresses, I was able to create a table and background structures that I could simply add to the live database without affecting anything in the live front end database. When I did start to change the front end, I moved to the next technique.
- Because I use version control with my databases. I am able to take a live version of the database and work on that and commit changes to just the components that changed. I can isolate the change in each version and skip the current front end changes to the addressing while fixing a bug on a different form for example.
So this allows me flexibility in what I can choose to work on. If the customer re-prioritizes tasks and pushes something to the front that needs to be done immediately (or there is a new request that will only take a few minutes to knock out) I am able to make sure that gets out to the client and I’m not blocked by my big change I’m working on.
I suggest keeping nimble like this so that you can keep your client’s requests moving and not generate large backlogs if possible. Also use the Pomodoro technique. Set a timer and work in short 25 minute intervals taking regular 5 minute breaks to stay fresh and focused on the task at hand!