What is WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)?
WSJF is the prioritisation method most teams meet through SAFe. Here's what it means, how the score is built and where teams go wrong with it.
Updated
Definition
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) is a prioritisation method from the Scaled Agile Framework that ranks work by cost of delay divided by job size. Work that is valuable, urgent or unlocks other work, but is small, goes first.
What it is in practice
A team lists the features competing for the next program increment and scores each one on four things, relative to the others: user-business value, time criticality, risk reduction or opportunity enablement, and job size. Scores usually use a modified Fibonacci scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20), with the smallest item in each column set to 1.
The first three scores add up to the cost of delay. Divide that by job size and you get the WSJF score. Sort from highest to lowest and the top of the list is what to do first.
The point is not precision. WSJF makes a group say out loud why one feature should wait for another, and it rewards splitting big work into smaller pieces that deliver value sooner.
An example from Pulse Analytics
In the Meridian Labs demo, the Pulse Analytics team is choosing between a backfill tool for historic events, saved views for dashboards and sharing a dashboard with a team. Sharing scores high on time criticality because teams are asking for it now, and it is a small job, so it rises to the top. The backfill tool matters, but it is a large job with less urgency, so it waits. The team writes down the reasoning next to each score, so the order still makes sense when someone asks about it a month later.
Common mistakes
- Scoring each item on its own instead of against the others. WSJF only works as a relative comparison.
- Letting one person score everything. The value of the method is the conversation between product, engineering and business owners.
- Treating job size as a time estimate in days. It is a relative size, like story points.
- Scoring once and never again. Time criticality changes, so rescore before each planning round.
How Ondule handles this
Ondule doesn't calculate WSJF inside the app. Score your features in the free WSJF calculator, then plan the top items into a program increment, where their objectives, dependencies and risks sit on one record.
Questions
- What does WSJF stand for?
- Weighted Shortest Job First. It is a prioritisation method from the Scaled Agile Framework.
- How is WSJF calculated?
- Add user-business value, time criticality and risk reduction or opportunity enablement to get the cost of delay, then divide by job size.
- Do you need SAFe to use WSJF?
- No. Any team can use WSJF to compare features, though it is most common in teams planning program increments.