FWIW, my rule of thumb was to avoid more than 3 cycles worth of stuff in view.
1) In Progress --> Started --> Completed: One cycle worth of WIP
2) Next Up: WIP for the next cycle (top third is highest priority, remainder is unknown priority until the cycle starts, these items are up for discussion)
3) Unscheduled backlog: Max count is less than 1 cycle worth of material
I've worked with small teams that can digest 5-10 "items/stories" in a cycle, for them there shouldn't be more than 30 items in view.
I've worked with larger teams that digested 30-40 items in a cycle and for them, seeing ~120 items was fine.
For larger teams, the work items tended to get broken down into smaller chunks as the communication overhead and carrying costs of implicit details was much higher.
How tactical, how coarse and how goal-oriented these work items are can vary widely by team/org interests and capabilities.
1) In Progress --> Started --> Completed: One cycle worth of WIP
2) Next Up: WIP for the next cycle (top third is highest priority, remainder is unknown priority until the cycle starts, these items are up for discussion)
3) Unscheduled backlog: Max count is less than 1 cycle worth of material
I've worked with small teams that can digest 5-10 "items/stories" in a cycle, for them there shouldn't be more than 30 items in view.
I've worked with larger teams that digested 30-40 items in a cycle and for them, seeing ~120 items was fine.
For larger teams, the work items tended to get broken down into smaller chunks as the communication overhead and carrying costs of implicit details was much higher.
How tactical, how coarse and how goal-oriented these work items are can vary widely by team/org interests and capabilities.