How to acknowlege new work
Summary
- When accepting work, communicate back so that expectations are clear
Details
- Include a request for needed informaiton/resources to complete the task
- explain which projects you have ahead of theirs
- estimate how long you will take to complete this work
References
Quotes
When adding a new project to your holding tank, it’s important to update the source of this new obligation about what they should expect. To do so, send an acknowledgment message that formally acknowledges the project that you’re committing to complete, but that also includes the following three pieces of extra information: (1) a request for any additional details you need from the source before you can start the project, (2) a count of the number of existing projects already on your lists, and (3) an estimate of when you expect to complete this new work.
After sending this message, label the project with the time estimate you included in your acknowledgment message so you won’t later forget. Notice, when making this estimate, you can look at the estimates on all of your existing projects to help inform a realistic prediction.