Liberate Your Team’s Bandwidth by Giving Them Permission to Release Outdated Tasks
Release what no longer matters so you and your team can focus on what does.
The reality of most teams is that we add tasks and projects faster than they complete them. And while quarterly culls are a great team habit, they’re really hard for teammates to practice on their own and they’re something leaders assume their teams are doing routinely or as needed.
Here’s the pattern: the longer your team goes without culling their tasks, the more likely they'll abandon your work management system and avoid the wall of red tasks.
Additionally, they'll start avoiding taking on more tasks and projects because they already feel so behind — even if they're not actively working on those tasks and projects, the weight of them is creating so much noise and friction that it's gumming up what's on their mental, digital, and emotional desktops.
In these scenarios, I advise leaders to invoke the PTR (Permission to Release) protocol and communication shortcode. (I discuss communication shortcodes in Team Habits.)
It's simple but effective: when PTR is used, teammates have permission to release old tasks, projects, and ideas without judgment, justification, or commentary.
No swirl. No shame. No “this may come up in a performance review.”
Just release it and move on. PTR is a special case of developing a team habit of subtraction.
As if holding onto work that doesn't need to get done was bad enough, there's actually a worse fate: teammates go on a tear and complete work that no longer needs to be done and displace relevant, aligned work that would be far better to complete. Not only have you paid for waste, you've added more time debt to current work. (Ugh!)
Why use PTR rather than “Drop/Kill It!”
Many leaders will default to a directive communication style and direct teammates drop projects. Sometimes, to be “helpful,” leaders will complete, closeout, or delete actionables in their work management system.1
There are a few reasons why starting with PTR is better than the directive/doing approach:
It can be wildly disorienting for teammates to have a lot of tasks and projects just disappear. We get used to digital piles and broken printers, even if they’re causing us anxiety and creating workarounds.
Most of us are terrible about putting enough context in actionables for others to understand them and they’re often breadcrumbs to something else. Someone deleting your breadcrumbs is not helpful and those breadcrumbs may point to a live issue or opportunity that the leader is unaware of or has simply forgotten.
It’s cathartic to be able to release stuff that's been stymying you for a long time. Once that big, hairy, warty frog is gone, we can feel how heavy it was and how much more we can do. That catharsis can lead to fuel for current and future work.
The point of PTR isn’t just about the tasks and projects the leaders see, but permitting a team to release other work that may no longer be relevant. It’s not a good use of leaders’ time to go through all their teammates’ tasks and projects; the leader’s job is to do just enough that their teammates carry forward.
PTR encourages autonomy, agency, and proactiveness, which is exactly what most leaders want from their teams and what their teams want from their leaders. Save that directive energy for the work teammates are holding onto that’s no longer aligned with priorities and capacity.
How to handle work that teammates aren't sure can be released
PTR as a communication shortcode is typically used by leaders and managers who have the institutional power to direct work and decide priorities.
Like many of the shortcodes I encourage teams to use, it has a teammate-initiated version: “PTR?”
When teammates use this, it’s their way of saying “I’m not sure this task or project is relevant anymore and it’s sucking up TEAM costs. I recommend that I/we let it go. Do you agree?”
As a leader, you have three good responses to this:
Yes. Great job on practicing subtraction.
No, and here’s why:
Yes, and identify the root cause of why this got stuck.
Be careful with #3, though. The goal isn’t to get into emotional litigation about it, but sometimes important opportunities or broken printers don’t get addressed. And often, they don’t get addressed because leaders don’t give the context, guidance, or prioritization something needs to get done.
The goal of #3 isn’t to figure out why your teammate didn’t do their job, but to figure out if you didn’t do yours or if there’s some other team habit that needs to be addressed so you don’t keep doing the same things and getting the same outcomes.
Rocket Practice: Invoke PTR for at least 10 tasks or projects
If you’re ready to clear up your team’s bandwidth, invoke PRT for at least 10 tasks or projects.
Feel free to share this post with them for context. Swipe this prompt:
“Team, it’s time for us to clean up some of our tasks and projects. I’m invoking PTR (Permission to Release) — read this post for more context and find at least 10 tasks or projects to release or suggest to be released.”
Release what no longer matters so you and your team can focus on what does.
One last thing: needing to invoke PTR is a signal that your team has some team habits that need to be improved. Take the Team Habits Quiz to get an idea of which team habits to start improving.
True story: I caught myself doing this a few days ago, against my own better judgment and counsel. My mistake is the genesis of my writing and sharing this post.