𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 — 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸.

In one of my first roles after college, I joined a team that spent hours in bi-weekly planning meetings.

We were obsessive about estimating.
We debated whether a task was 5 or 8 “points”.
We’d argue over 13 vs 21.
Was it a 2 for a senior developer or a 5 for a junior?

And at the end of it?
We still didn’t actually know what work we could deliver.
Our estimates were guesses — sometimes wildly off — because we hadn’t even explored the problem yet.

One day I spoke up.
I asked why we spent so much energy sizing work instead of figuring out how to do it.
The room went quiet.

No one had a clear answer… it's what the team always did.

So I suggested something simple:
Let’s carve out time-boxed research tasks before we estimate big stories.
That way we’d shrink the unknowns before we committed.

I didn’t even know at the time these “spikes” were an Agile best practice.
It just made sense.

The results?
  - Less guessing
  - Better collaboration
  - Clearer plans
  - And a team that could actually deliver on its commitments

That’s what it means to Challenge the Process, one of the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.

- Look at what’s not working
- Ask why
- Propose a change

Because sometimes the most valuable leadership is about fixing the system, not just working harder inside it.