What does being ‘blocked’ mean for teams building software products
If you build software, you must have experienced blockers completely shutting you down. The biggest challenge for the company is that blockers often cascade and start impacting several teams.
Blockers are frustrating
If you build software, you must have experienced blockers completely shutting you down.
For developers, this could even mean that they are waiting for something or someone. They might not be able to make progress on their work. More often than not, these unresolved problems can often start a chain of blockers.
For managers, blockers are an existential challenge. They need to be able to prioritize issues, respond fast to changes, and track progress towards completion.
The biggest challenge for the company is that blockers often cascade and start impacting several teams.
Common responses? Let’s work on something else, or setup a meeting to raise the priority, list this as an issue in the status report, or even reach out to the manager for help!
End result? Frustration amongst the team, loss of productivity… the list can be endless.
Approaches to stay unblocked
Effective handling of blockers is a mix of process, workflow, tooling and more importantly, a human and cultural issue.
There is something common to the most innovative companies delivering great products in the shortest time to market: they are all good at identifying and eliminating execution blockers early!
A holistic and human-centric approach to handling blockers works the best in our view. In the follow-up blogs, we will take up each aspect detail.