The real cost of rework (and how we cut it)
Every team deals with rework. Some call it learning. Others call it pain.
Either way, it’s not just bugs — it’s the bill you pay for a fuzzy idea of “what good looks like.”
Rework creeps in quietly.
It hides behind half-understood requirements, rushed conversations, and the endless pressure
to move faster.
But here’s the thing: speed means nothing if you’re running in circles.
At one client, releases felt like coin flips. Smart people, lots of effort, but every “nearly there”
dragged on. Confidence slid. The team braced for fallout every time a build went out.
We didn’t speed up. We got deliberate.
1. Make intent unmissable
Before any work started, we paused for a short chat between the person who wants it, the
person who builds it, and the person who checks it.
Not theatre — just three answers in plain English:
• What outcome are we trying to create?
• What does good look like?
• How will we know it’s done?
That short conversation — what Kanban calls a Three Amigos — saves weeks later.
Because every “Amigos” discussion has only four possible outcomes:
Cancel it. It’s not worth doing.
Go for it. It’s perfect and we all know what’s needed.
Break it down. It’s too big — split it into smaller, deliverable stories.
Park some of it. Focus on the essentials now, capture the rest in the backlog for later.
Every outcome is a win, because each one removes ambiguity before work even starts.
2. Tighten the loop
We slowed things down on purpose. We had no automated testing, so we ran a focused test
blitz — two solid weeks of deliberate, repeatable testing — to prove to ourselves that what
we shipped actually worked for customers.
Confidence went up. Noise went down. Momentum came back.
3. Finish more than you start
We stopped celebrating “in progress” and started counting “done.”
When something needed rework, it jumped the queue for the same people who made it.
Fast fix. Fast learning. Less thrash.
The result? Fewer surprises. Cleaner releases. A team that trusted its own work again.
Not because we added more documents or governance, but because we were deliberate —
about intent, about feedback, and about finishing.
Rework will never be zero. But if it’s eating your week, the problem isn’t effort. It’s clarity.
Make the next piece of work crystal clear. Finish it well. Then do the next one.
Rework isn’t failure. It’s feedback that costs more than it should.
Your job is to make it cheaper.