The original title is "The Hidden Cost of Unplanned Work (And How to Protect Your Sprint)"

Short summary

Mid-sprint interruptions destroy developer focus through context switching—a 10-minute quick fix costs an hour of lost productivity. The post recommends three tactical defenses: assign a 'Firefighter' developer per sprint to handle urgent issues, reserve 20% of capacity as a buffer for unplanned work, and enforce ticket creation for any task exceeding 15 minutes. Without visibility into unplanned demand, teams will systematically over-commit and miss deadlines.

• •Context switching from unplanned work costs 5-10x more than the task itself in lost focus
• •Assign a dedicated 'Firefighter' role per sprint to absorb urgent requests and shield the team
• •Reserve 20% capacity buffer and ticket all work >15 minutes to make unplanned demand visible

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