How does your team handle "quick favour" requests that don't go through your actual process?
Been thinking about this alot lately and curious how other PMs/POs deal with it
Every team ive worked on eventually develops this unofficial side channel — someone DMs you directly, "hey quick favour," and somehow it just happens. no ticket, no backlog entry, nothing that goes through whatever intake process exists on paper (if there even is one lol)
The weird part is it never feels like a big deal in the moment. each one is small and easy to justify. but looking back at a few sprints i realised the actual plan and the actual work being done had drifted pretty far apart. basically death by a thousand "just this once"'s
Curious if this is universal or if i just got unlucky with a specific team. few things im curious about:
- does your team actually have an intake process or is it more informal/vibes based
- if you do have one, does it actually hold up when a senior stakeholder wants smth fast tracked
- has anyone found a way to say no to these without it turning into a whole Political Thing
Genuinely want to hear how ppl are handling this, good or bad. feel like everyone has some version of this and nobody talks about it. My version's captured here.