Tools such as XPlanner should be the cornerstone of an SCM group. This iteration and user-stories based model planning tool allows SCMs to have a more complete picture of what the current tasks/projects are and what’s in the back-burner.

The way my current team uses this tool is we break it down to a monthly iterative model. Within it, we have user stories outlining all the projects and tasks we can confidently complete for this iteration. As each iteration goes by, we get a more accurate picture of how productive we can be in any given iteration based on the burn down charts. From that, future iterations will have a more precise picture of what we can or cannot accomplish.

For example, if the current SCM group consists of 4 members and each member is highly productive in that every individual is capable of producing an output of 160 hours per month; each iteration would then contain enough user stories assigned equally to all members totaling up to 640 hours worth of tasks. That is an ideal scenario! As anyone who has been in SCM would know that the nature of our work is highly unpredictable. Due to such fact, we normally reserve approximately 60-80% of the expected output of each member for a particular iteration while saving the remaining hours for unexpected tasks or project supports (one of the most time consuming aspect of SCM). Based on that, a monthly iteration for a 4 member SCM team should only be assigned 400-500 hours worth of tasks. The remaining hours should have time allotted based on a higher priority for project supports.

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