Classes of Service

Traditional prioritization (P1, P2, P3 or High/Medium/Low) has problems:

• Everything becomes "high priority"
• Priorities don't reflect economic reality
• No clear policy for how to handle each level

Classes of Service solve this by categorizing work based on the economic consequences of delay—the cost of delay.

The four standard classes are:

1. Expedite: Delay has severe, immediate cost
2. Fixed Date: Delay past a deadline has severe cost
3. Standard: Cost of delay is linear (longer wait = proportionally worse)
4. Intangible: Cost of delay is unclear or very low

Definition: Work where delay has immediate, severe consequences.

Examples:

• Production is down
• Security vulnerability discovered
• Regulatory deadline tomorrow
• Major customer about to churn

Policies for Expedite:

• Maximum 1 item in expedite at any time
• Drops everything else (even WIP limits)
• Must be actively worked until complete
• Requires explicit authorization (not self-assigned)
• Triggers root cause analysis after (why was this urgent?)

The test: If you completed this work in 2 days instead of 1 day, would something terrible happen? If yes, it might be expedite. If no, it's probably Standard.

Warning signs of abuse:

• More than 10% of work is expedite
• Expedite lane is never empty
• People use expedite to skip the queue

Definition: Work that must be completed by a specific date, after which it loses significant value.

Examples:

• Black Friday sale features
• Regulatory compliance deadline
• Partner launch commitment
• Conference demo

Policies for Fixed Date:

• Must have explicit date attached
• Prioritized earlier based on lead time requirements
• May reserve capacity to ensure completion
• Regular check-ins as deadline approaches

The key insight: Fixed Date work needs to start earlier, not move faster. If your average lead time is 10 days, a Fixed Date item due in 12 days should start now, not in 2 days.

Unlike Expedite, Fixed Date doesn't drop everything—it just ensures the work starts early enough to finish on time.

Definition: Work where cost of delay is roughly linear—waiting longer is proportionally worse, but not catastrophic.

Examples:

• Most feature development
• Normal bug fixes
• Internal improvements
• Customer requests without hard deadlines

Policies for Standard:

• FIFO (first in, first out) within the class
• Subject to normal WIP limits
• No special treatment

This is your default. Most work should be Standard. If your Expedite and Fixed Date lanes are constantly full, something is wrong—either with your system or with how work is classified.

Definition: Work where the cost of delay is unclear, very low, or will only manifest far in the future.

Examples:

• Technical debt reduction
• Documentation improvements
• Exploratory research
• "Nice to have" features
• Proactive maintenance

Policies for Intangible:

• Lower priority than Standard
• May have dedicated capacity allocation (e.g., 20%)
• Works as "fill-in" when nothing else is waiting
• Regularly reviewed—is it still worth doing?

The trap: Intangible work never gets done because Standard work is infinite. Solution: allocate explicit capacity. "We spend 15% of capacity on tech debt" protects this work.

The other trap: Intangible work is actually valuable, just with delayed payoff. Ignoring it creates problems later. Track it separately so you can see if you're investing enough.

Option 1: Swimlanes per class Most visual and clear. Four horizontal lanes, work flows left to right within each lane. Expedite at top, Intangible at bottom.

Option 2: Card color or tag Less visual impact, but works when you already use swimlanes for something else.

Option 3: Separate expedite board Some teams pull urgent work to a dedicated "war room" board until resolved.

Policies to establish:

• How is work classified? (Who decides, what criteria?)
• Can work change class? (Usually: up is easy, down requires discussion)
• What capacity goes to each class?
• How often is the classification reviewed?

Start simple: Expedite and Standard only. Add Fixed Date when you have real deadline-driven work. Add Intangible when you're ready to protect investment work.