The workload management in Agile environments is completely different from a traditional environment. 

In a traditional working environment, a project manager simply takes into account the work that needs to be accomplished and the number of resources. Based on factors like a team member’s skills, availability, capacity, and other risks that can impact the work schedule, a manager starts planning and managing the workload. But, in Agile working environments, it is the team that decides how much work it is going to complete in the given time. 

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Just to keep things sane, I would like to mention that in this post, I will be referring to the Scrum framework when mentioning Agile. This is because teams that use Agile project management methodology primarily follow one of the two frameworks: either Scrum or Kanban. 

In Scrum, the workload is managed based on the story points in sprints. Whereas in Kanban, the workload is managed based on the team capacity in WIP limits. To avoid misunderstanding, I will talk about the Scrum framework only.    

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Let’s understand how workload management works in Agile and 5 best practices for workload management.   

How is the workload of an Agile Scrum team managed?

In Scrum, the workload of a team is calculated by the number of stories that need to be completed in a sprint. 

- A sprint is a short iteration of two to four weeks in which committed work is completed. 

- A story is some amount of work that a team commits to complete in a sprint. It does not talk about the work in terms of hours or time, but value, which is measured in story point. 

- A story point in Scrum is usually estimated based on the Fibonacci sequence. A story can be assigned a story point 1,2,3,5,8, 13, or higher. 1 being the easiest story which may take less than 2 hours, and 13 being the hardest story, which may take more than a week. 

- Once a team estimates the size of each story, it starts picking the number of stories it can complete in the sprint based on the capacity. A product owner sets the priorities of the stories to be picked. 

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This is the basic workflow of how workload is managed in Agile environments. 

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Key differences in Agile workload management from traditional work management are:  

• a team picks the workload 
• the workload is planned for a sprint (two to four weeks)     
• workload management is reviewed and refined after every sprint 

However, the purpose of workload management remains the same, that is to ensure workload is distributed optimally among all the available resources. 

Now, let’s look at the best practices for effective workload management in Agile environments.      

5 best Practices for workload management in Agile Environments  

Best practices are the activities that make it easy to do something. These are developed by experts from their years of work experience. Here are the five best practices that can help you with workload management in Agile environments:

1. Clearly defining the scope of each story 

In Agile, we talk about the work in terms of stories, epics, and initiatives. Large work is broken down into small sections of work. Multiple stories form an epic and collection of epics for an initiative. 

It is the responsibility of the product owner to clearly define the scope of epics, stories, and initiatives. It is crucial because based on the description of these, a scrum team estimates the story point for each story. After adding the total number of story points a team decides how much work they can commit to in a sprint. If you do not clearly define the scope and requirements of a story, it may lead to wrong estimation.

2. Involving each team member of the scrum team in story point estimation    

Story point estimation is the basis of workload management in Agile. Therefore, every team member must have a say in assigning a story point to a story. 

For example, one team member assigns a score of 5. The score is usually assigned compared to a score of a reference story to which the entire team agrees. You can consider the reference story to have 8 story points.  Another team member thinks the story you picked is easier and assigns a score of 4, while the third team member says we should rank between 3 and 5. 

Based on the collective evaluation, you have to assign a story point to a story. This will help you to come to an accurate estimation of the story point. 

3. Refine workload management after each sprint 

The best thing about Agile workload management is the continuous improvement. It is expected that the sprint velocity of the team will increase after every sprint. It is because with every sprint team is getting more and more used to working with each other. 

Also, based on the historical data of the previous sprints, a team can better estimate the story points and define the stories they can complete in a sprint.

So, continuously refine your workload management. Look for ways you can improve during the sprint retrospective. Sit with the team and ask questions like:

• How many story points did we do in the last iteration? 
• How many story points can we commit here? 
• Are story points comparable with the previous?
• How much do we deviate from the committed goals? 
• What output in the sprint can the team commit to?

Based on that, refine your workload management.          

4. Monitor the progress and manage risks consistently  

Many professionals have the misconception that there are no risks involved in Agile. But irrespective of the methodology, risks are involved when you are working together in a team. The best way to identify risks and bottlenecks is by monitoring the progress.

Use a burndown chart to measure the amount of work completed against the estimated plan. It is a useful Agile tool to gauge whether or not the scrum team is achieving its goals. Visit the burndown chart from time to time to figure out whether a team will complete the planned work or need to reprioritize the sprint tasks.   

This is one of the risks. Apart from that, try to plan for the other risks that can impact the sprint. Officially, Agile does not discuss dedicated risk management as it gets managed in daily standup meetings, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives. However, you should prepare a list of risks that can impact the Scrum outside the Scrum framework for effective risk management.          

5. Plan the resource efficiency realistically   

It is often said that an Agile team that gives 60 to 70% time to technical efforts is efficient. This is because team members of an Agile team have to perform non-technical activities also. These can include documentation, testing, deployment, planning meetings, sprint retrospectives, and daily meetings. 

If you plan the resources for 100% efficiency for technical efforts, you will arrive at the wrong estimates and do not have buffer time. Plan your resource efficiency based on the overall effort, not just the technical effort. 

To do so, you can use Agile resource planning tools to avoid work overload and employee burnout. Some Agile project management tools are even utilizing the power of AI to run story point estimations. Using Agile tools can help you with effective workload management.    

Apart from using these five best practices for workload management in Agile environments, make sure your Agile teams communicate effectively with each other. 

In daily standup meetings, team members should be comfortable enough to communicate with one another what they are working on and if they need help with anything. This effective collaboration will help you achieve the efficiency that Agile teams are known for.   

Wrap-up  

Agile teams are known for their work efficiency. But it can happen only when you know how to use the Agile principles, values, and methodologies. 

No doubt mastery in workload management in Agile environments will come with time when you plan sprints for multiple projects and work together with the team. But following the right workload management basics and practices will get you near to the perfect planning and execution.     

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For more on product management, stay tuned. 

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Author: Vartika Kashyap

Vartika Kashyap, CMO at ProofHub, is a renowned B2B SaaS marketer with 17+ years of experience. She's a prolific writer with 200+ articles on productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Vartika is a three-time LinkedIn Top Voice recipient and a thought leader in people management. Her work is featured on various top-tier publication platforms such as Muck Rack, Medium, eLearning Industry,  Business2Community, DZone, Social Media Today, G2., and TweakYourBiz