We use Runn day-to-day to plan our own team's time. See how the development team use our new Resourcing Requests feature to have a say in the features they work on.
At Runn, it matters deeply to us that our team is engaged and excited about the work they are doing. For us, resource management isn’t simply about staffing projects - it’s about seeing every project as an opportunity. Every project we tackle is a chance for the team to build their knowledge and refine their skills, to develop as professionals, and to continue adding to that all-important organizational knowledge base.
To bring this to life, we use our new Resourcing Requests feature to streamline the process of assigning developers to our feature projects so that everyone gets a say in the projects they end up working on.
Here's how we do it:
Our feature development process is inspired by Basecamp’s ShapeUp, consisting of six-week development cycles and two-week cooldown periods. Feature prioritization, shaping and scoping also take place throughout.
A week before a new cycle starts, our Product team finalizes and announces which features we’ll be building in the cycle. Each feature’s pitch and rough scope are shared internally for anyone at the company to access and familiarize themselves with.
In Runn, I begin by creating projects for each feature. To save time in the planning stage, we’ve got project templates already set up for our recurring project types. For most of our features, we use the "Cycle Feature" project template.
This template includes all the relevant details about the project, including the roles required (with placeholders), phases, milestones and assignments.
Next, it’s time for our developers to log into our company Runn account and nominate themselves for their preferred projects.
They create resourcing requests and leave a comment with any additional details, such as personal interests or relevant skills and experience that would make them a great fit for the project.
Here are the requests for some of the features currently on our roadmap 👀
Next, I review these requests, taking into consideration not only each person’s comments and preferences, but also their capacity and skills.
As we do a 4-day work week, it’s paramount that everyone keeps their own schedules up-to-date in Runn. The People Planner and Capacity Chart let me see exactly when the team will be working and how much capacity we have to work with on any given day or week.
Since the engineering team is relatively small, I have a decent awareness of each person’s skills so I can easily match up the technical skills required for the feature to the right person.
However, we also use Skills and Levels to capture everyone’s skill sets. Here’s a preview of what our skills list looks like at Runn:
Then referring to the Resourcing Requests, each person’s project preferences are the third (but equally important) dimension I use to make my resourcing decisions. This ensures that each project is staffed with the right people and that everyone is excited about the work they're doing.
One of our senior engineers, Hyojin Jung, says:
“Having the ability to view the entire list of upcoming projects for the cycle and say what I'm keen on has really helped me grow as a developer. While it's tempting to solely focus on projects that play to my strengths, I try to pick a mix of projects: some that help me get better where I'm not so strong, and others that let me shine.
The Resourcing Requests feature facilitates this in a well-structured and transparent way. While there's no guarantee of being allocated to my most preferred project, I can see who else is keen on the same projects and why they're interested.
This approach not only helps me grow but also contributes to the collective growth and success of the company in the long term.”
Arun Kumar, one of our intermediate engineers adds:
“Being able to request which projects I can work on has been a game changer for me. It dares me to explore opportunities within the company that I otherwise wouldn't. Right off the bat at Runn, there I was - not just participating, but also piloting a project.”
Once I’ve made my decision, I transfer the placeholder assignments to the chosen developer in Runn, which closes off the resourcing requests, and send out a Slack message to the whole development team announcing who has been assigned to what.
Each feature gets a dedicated channel in Slack for day-to-day communications among the project team throughout the cycle. These are also important for also looping in other stakeholders who aren’t on the project team.
Over the course of the cycle, we continue to use Runn to track the project. Sometimes things crop up: someone needs to take unexpected leave, a technical discovery impacts the scope of the project, or the team just isn’t getting through the tickets at the pace we anticipated. We keep everything updated in Runn so the rest of the company can stay up-to-date on what’s happening.
Using Resourcing Requests has made it easier to manage our project teams and assign developers to the features they are excited to work on. It's a simple and effective tool that has helped us streamline our resourcing process and focus on what really matters: empowering our team to work on what they’re interested in.
If you want to learn more about Resourcing Requests, have a look at this doc.
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