Blockers, Risks and Issues

As we have already discussed, Software Development is hard, but it doesn’t need to be. Getting ahead of and proactively managing Blockers, Risks and Issues will go a long way to reducing friction during the software development process.

Blockers - All work is stopped on task/project until the the impediments have been removed. Generally these are the hightest priority of things that need to be resolved. This would involve a phone call to client to request the information needed to continue the work on task/project.

Risks - These are generally things that we don’t know enough about to determine if they may turn into blockers or adversely impact the ability to complete our project work. Work is still able to continue with a risk.

Issues - Questions that need to be answered before the task can be completed. An example of this is an incomplete requirement. Something that may not be understood or information on how to test this feature, such as what environment to test it in our what data should be used. Issues may not currently be blocking the process of completing the work but eventually will.