Calibration
Under, just right, over.
| Situation | Under | Just Right | Over |
|---|---|---|---|
| A customer is blocked this week | Closes the ticket once it is assigned elsewhere. Does not check whether the customer can work again. | Stays with the issue until the customer can continue. Pulls in whoever is needed, gives the customer a clear next step, and keeps the fix small enough that the rest of the week's work still ships. | Camps on the ticket and drops the other customer work already in flight. Those customers wait while one issue gets undivided attention. |
| Picking which bugs to fix | Works the newest or easiest tickets. Breakage that stops customer work sits in the list. | Asks which defects are blocking real jobs this week. Fixes those first, even when they are messy, and leaves cosmetic issues with a short note on why they wait. | Treats every reported nit as urgent. The team spends the week on one-off annoyances while a workflow break stays open. |
| Another team is waiting on you | Leaves the request in the queue. Does not ask what customer work is stuck behind it. | Learns who is blocked and what they need to finish this week. Sends a thinner handoff that unblocks them and parks the extras, so both teams' customer work can move. | Drops their own customer commitments to polish the internal request past what was asked. The asking team gets more than they needed, and external customers wait. |
| In a customer meeting | Walks through internal plans. Leaves without knowing what the customer is trying to get done. | Starts with their current work and what is in the way. Commits only to what the team can do soon, writes it down, and takes the rest back as input rather than a promise. | Says yes to every request to keep the meeting warm. The team spends the following days untangling commitments it cannot staff. |
| A promised date is going to slip | Stays silent. The customer learns about the miss when the work does not arrive. | Calls as soon as the slip is certain. Offers a smaller piece they can use now and a date for the rest that the team can actually hold. | Adds free extras or a tighter new date to soften the news. The second miss costs more trust than the first honest delay would have. |
| One customer asks for a custom change | Parks the request and never checks whether anyone else has the same problem. | Asks how widespread the need is. Builds a shared version if it is common, or declines the one-off and offers a path the product already supports. | Cuts the special case into this week's work. Support now carries an exception, and the next customer expects the same treatment. |
| Reviewing a change before it ships | Marks the ticket done without walking the customer path. Confusing steps go out unnoticed. | Tries the change the way a customer will. Holds the release for a step that would block them, and lets leftover polish wait until after it ships. | Stops the release for rare wording and edge cases. The fix customers are waiting on sits another week. |
| Telling a customer no | Avoids the conversation. The customer keeps planning around something the team will not build. | States the no, the constraint, and what saying yes would cost other customers. Offers the closest supported path and writes it down so the hope does not get revived by accident. | Softens the no until it sounds like a later yes. The customer staffs a plan around a capability that never arrives. |