Rolling out an intake process

There's tons of ideas for work and projects floating around, and there's certainly no argument that there's tons of work to do, or that a lot of that is important and should get done. That said, this doesn’t mean that it ALL should be done.  Frequently teams end up getting bombarded with different requests from multiple angles.  Individuals will approach random team members and ask for some work, or executives will plan something out and assume it'll get done. 

The challenge in the tech team is to figure out how to setup an intake process to streamline, filter and accept work. This process should include a way to evaluate the value of the work (e.g. what the business gets out of it), as well as the relative effort of the work (is it possible to accomplish with current resources).  A good intake process results in several changes in how work is sourced, how it's accepted and how a team decides what to accept.  

While there certainly is a lot to it, one of the biggest impacts I've seen is for the business side; they now have to follow a process instead of just flinging ideas at you. This makes getting buy-in from the business critical to any intake process.  Not only are you changing things up for them, but you're adding process, which means things take longer.  There's a few things I've found that help reduce this impact;

Start early

Once you've determined a basic I take process start socializing it with your business partners.  This means letting them know what the plan is, and more importantly, how it helps them.   Giving the team loads of time to get used to the change will help blunt the surprise when it goes online. You can start early be constantly bringing it up in meetings, reminding folks when it’s going to go online, and providing documentation on how it works.

Talk to the top

Like any process change, be sure you're getting buy-in from the leadership of your business partners.  Ensuring the VP or Director is onboard will both get you an ally who will spread the word, but also give you a backstop.  This makes it much harder for someone to not follow the process since their leadership is onboard.  It also helps demonstrate you want to collaborate with the entire team instead of just pushing new processes onto specific individuals.

Be consistent

Once the process is in place ALWAYS use it.  Nothing will undo it more quickly than one person or project getting to skip the line.  This isn’t to say the process can’t or won’t be changed, just that it should be consistently applied across all requests / projects.  

Collaborate

Once you've created your basic process, share it with the business.  Explain to them why you started here, but ask them for their input.  At the very least this gets more buy in, but it's also likely you'll get some good ideas from it.  As the process matures, feedback from your business partners will also be a great source of ideas.  After all, they’re the ones who have to deal with it on a regular basis.