{"id":6341,"date":"2024-09-05T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T07:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/?p=6341"},"modified":"2026-10-01T08:55:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:55:56","slug":"balance-development-and-maintenance-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/balance-development-and-maintenance-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Balance Development and Maintenance Work in Your Software Development Team (In 3 Steps!)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today, I\u2019d like to share a strategy for balancing maintenance work and new features in your software development team that will save you time, reduce stress, and improve your team’s performance!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be real\u2026 managing tech debt and developing new requests can be really challenging, especially when you\u2019re trying to meet everyone\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the thing:<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have a system in place to allocate capacity for the type of work your team is handling, your features will get delayed, and the maintenance backlog will just keep growing.<\/p>\n

So, after quite some time figuring this out (with plenty of mistakes along the way), I\u2019d like to show you a system that will help you strike the perfect balance.<\/p>\n

Buckle up and let\u2019s dive right in.<\/p>\n

3 Steps for Balancing Maintenance Work and New Features<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a straightforward three-step solution to keep your team on track and avoid interruptions.<\/p>\n

The steps are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Track maintenance work and new features separately<\/li>\n
  2. Allocate capacity for each type of work<\/li>\n
  3. Visualize your work distribution<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let\u2019s explore each of them in more detail.<\/p>\n

    Step #1: Track Maintenance Work and New Features Separately<\/h3>\n

    The first step is to leverage your historical performance data and monitor the quantity of each type of task within your process.<\/p>\n

    Make it a practice to tag maintenance and feature tasks separately on your board as they surface. The easiest way to do that is to use the Work Item Type field (or create a new custom field) to track each type of work.<\/p>\n

    The goal here is to start measuring the amount of maintenance work and features in your process. This is where the Throughput Breakdown Chart comes into play.<\/p>\n

    \"Throughput<\/a><\/p>\n

    Use Nave\u2019s Throughput Breakdown Chart<\/a> to see how many features and maintenance requests your team is handling. Try it out at no cost for 14 days (No CC required!)<\/a> \u2192<\/em><\/p>\n

    The Throughput Breakdown Chart is a great tool to use when it comes to emphasizing the volume of maintenance requests your team has to deal with.<\/p>\n

    In the example above, the chart displays all of your completed work items split by work item type, exposing the percentage that each type of work represents of the overall work you\u2019ve delivered.<\/p>\n

    For this team, we see that roughly 70% of the team\u2019s workload consists of high-impact issues which in their case represent flow debt.<\/p>\n

    Step #2 Allocate Capacity for Each Type of Work<\/h3>\n

    Now that the analysis is done, let\u2019s proceed to step #2 and assign capacity to each work item type in your workflow.<\/p>\n

    In order for this team to better manage their work, they used the information from the Throughput Breakdown Chart to allocate capacity as follows:<\/p>\n

    \"Capacity<\/a><\/p>\n

    With a commitment to deliver 10 items in the next sprint, here\u2019s how many tickets the team will handle per class simultaneously:<\/p>\n