Skip to content
Toprent.app Docs

2. Cycle ticket addition discipline

Date: 2025-10-01

Status

Accepted

Context

Our planning sessions are reviewed and approved by the CEO, who expects that most or all of the planned tickets will be delivered by the end of the cycle. However, we face challenges with mid-cycle ticket additions:

  • New features or bug fixes are sometimes requested by product or marketing teams and portrayed as urgent
  • These tickets are added to the current cycle without proper validation
  • At the end of the cycle, the CEO often demotes these “urgent” items to not-urgent
  • We risk working on irrelevant tasks instead of delivering committed objectives
  • This undermines our planning process and delivery predictability

We need a discipline to ensure tickets added to an ongoing cycle genuinely align with the cycle objectives.

Decision

Before adding any ticket to a started cycle, the engineer must ask themselves:

“Are you sure this ticket aligns with the cycle objective/s?”

Based on the answer:

  • YES → Add the ticket to the cycle
  • NO → Add the ticket to triage instead
  • I DON’T KNOW → Escalate the decision to other engineers or the CEO before adding

This applies to all ticket additions during an active cycle, regardless of who requests them or how urgent they claim it is.

Consequences

Positive

  • Maintains focus on committed cycle objectives
  • Reduces wasted effort on work that doesn’t align with priorities
  • Improves delivery predictability for stakeholders
  • Protects the team from scope creep and constantly shifting priorities
  • Strengthens the value of the planning process
  • Ensures CEO expectations are met

Neutral

  • Triage becomes the default destination for uncertain tickets
  • Creates a clear escalation path for ambiguous cases
  • Shifts responsibility to engineers to validate alignment before committing
  • May require more frequent communication with CEO on edge cases

Review Schedule

Review after 3 cycles to assess:

  • Is the discipline being followed consistently?
  • Are cycle objectives being met more reliably?
  • Is the escalation process working effectively?
  • Do we need to refine the criteria or process?