If you’ve been a Product Owner for a while, you know the scenario: everything is ticking along, the team is finally in flow… and then an “urgent” request drops in. Suddenly, what was clear becomes chaos, and the team’s focus is gone.
For me, it used to be the annual Christmas voucher. Every year, the request landed late. Everyone knew it was coming, but it still showed up as a fire drill.
Why Last-Minute Requests Hurt Teams
- They break focus. Developers lose momentum and context-switching kills productivity.
- They waste effort. Planned work gets delayed, and sometimes half-finished tasks have to be picked up again later.
- They demoralise the team. Nobody likes seeing priorities change just because someone shouts loudest.
And here’s the thing: these requests are rarely malicious. They’re usually the result of poor planning or different teams working in silos.
How I Handle It as a Product Owner
Over time, I’ve learned a few approaches that work better than just saying “no”:
1. Start the conversation early
If you know a request will come every year (like the voucher), bring it up months in advance. Don’t wait for the panic message.
2. Use the backlog as a neutral space
When something urgent pops up, I put it in the backlog or CAB queue. That way it’s visible, and stakeholders can see how it compares to other priorities.
3. Get manager alignment
If a request bypasses the process, I escalate it — not to block it, but to make sure managers see the trade-off. “If we do this now, here’s what slips.”
4. Say “not now” instead of “no”
It sounds softer, but it’s more accurate. It’s not that we’ll never do it — it’s just not realistic this week.
5. Build autonomy into the process
The real breakthrough came when we stopped firefighting and made stakeholders autonomous. Until recently, vouchers could only be set up by the dev team. It worked, but it was clunky and always created bottlenecks.
So instead of just surviving another Christmas scramble, we pushed for a feature that lets stakeholders create and manage vouchers themselves, all year round. Now:
- They can launch offers whenever they need.
- The dev team isn’t stuck doing admin work.
- Everyone saves time, and the team stays focused on building real product improvements.
Finding the Balance
Being a PO isn’t about being rigid. Sometimes a last-minute request really is critical, and the team rallies to deliver. But if every week has an “urgent” surprise, the process is broken.
The balance is discipline + communication + autonomy. Protect the team’s focus, but also look for ways to stop the same fire drills from coming back.
👉 Question for you: How do you deal with urgent requests in your team? Have you found ways to make stakeholders more autonomous?
