Calibration
Under, just right, over.
| Situation | Under | Just Right | Over |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handing work to the next team | Sends the work with known gaps and lets the next team find them. | Fixes the issues that would become someone else's defects, and names what is still open. Leaves polish that would delay the handoff more than it helps. | Holds the package until every edge case is clean. The next team waits and the shared date moves. |
| The same bug comes back | Applies last week's patch again and closes the ticket. | Fixes the symptom and changes the check or step that let it through, even if that costs another day this week. | Stops the team's other work to redesign around one returning bug. Commitments for the rest of the week slip. |
| Reviewing a teammate's draft | Skims and approves so the author can stay on the calendar. | Calls out the few places that would actually lower the bar, and says why. Leaves wording nits that do not change the outcome. | Rewrites the draft in their own voice. The author stops owning it and the review sits in the way of the week. |
| The team says the bar is too high | Drops the standard so the argument ends. | Keeps the parts a customer would notice, and cuts scope or sequence so the team can still hit that bar this week. | Treats every objection as a lack of will and refuses to cut anything. People work late and the work still ships late. |
| Closing a ticket | Marks it done while a known defect is still in it for the next person to find. | Fixes what would travel downstream, writes down the leftover risk, and only then closes it. | Leaves the ticket open for cosmetic leftovers no customer will see. The board fills with work that is already good enough. |
| A new person ships their first work | Lets them send it out without showing what done looks like on this team. | Walks through one recent example of the standard and reviews their first piece against it, while still letting them finish the week. | Makes them redo the first task until it matches a senior's taste in every detail. They lose the week and still cannot tell which parts matter. |
| A partner team's deliverable is rough | Takes it as-is to keep the relationship easy. | Sends it back with the specific gaps that would turn into defects here, and a way to land it this week. | Rejects the whole package and rebuilds it inside. The partner stops trying and this team now owns their work. |
| A process already works but creates rework | Leaves the clumsy step alone because it has not failed loudly this week. | Tightens the one step that keeps producing rework, and leaves the rest until that change sticks. | Redesigns the whole process in the same week. People spend their time learning new steps instead of doing the work. |