Pintail makes booking and notes software for physiotherapy clinics. It has 42 people in Bristol, and Theo Lambert is its Head of Product. The engineers plan a new sprint every two weeks from their own backlog. In Headwater, the company agrees the four climbs it has to finish this quarter, and each owner checks in on theirs every Monday.
Done when online booking for every clinic group loads in under a second at the Monday 9:00 peak, four weeks running.
- Measure load times for every clinic group9 Oct
- Load-test a 20-clinic group on the new engine23 Oct
- Keep four weeks of each diary ready to load6 Nov
- Load in under a second at one Monday peak27 Nov
- Load in under a second for four Mondays running18 Dec
Pintail’s engineers work from a backlog of 684 open tickets and plan a new sprint from it every two weeks. Releases, incidents, support tickets, and the sales pipeline each have their own tools as well. All of that stays where it is.
Headwater holds the plan that all of this work is for. It has Pintail’s vision, its three pillars, and six initiatives, along with the four company climbs and 19 team climbs the company has agreed to finish this quarter. Nobody copies tickets into Headwater, and no sprint is planned in it.
When work in the backlog holds up a climb, the climb’s owner says so in their Monday check-in and raises an issue for the team’s huddle. Choose any row to see what it holds.
Theo’s first ideas for October to December came from the backlog. One of them was “Migrate the calendar service”. It is work the engineers need to do, but from its title nobody can tell what will be different for a clinic once it is finished.
A climb names the result the company wants. “Online booking loads in under a second for clinic groups” can be checked, and Anjali’s engineers choose how to get there. Every climb has one owner, a done when line that says what will be true when it is finished, and a few dated milestones.
The tickets for the work stay in the backlog. The milestones are the few steps the owner ticks off in the Monday check-in.
Choose Rewrite on each of Theo’s ideas to see the climb it became.
- Migrate the calendar service
- Build group reports
- Onboarding wizard, version two
- Rewrite the notes editor
Pintail’s roadmap is a set of initiatives. An initiative is a project that runs from the start of one quarter to the end of another, and each one works towards one of the three pillars. Rebuild the booking engine runs for the whole financial year, from April 2026 to March 2027.
Each quarter, the initiative has a climb for that quarter’s part of the work. In the first quarter the climb was to design the new engine, and in the second it was to run 20 pilot clinics on it. This quarter’s climb is Online booking loads in under a second for clinic groups. The climb for January to March is set at quarterly planning in December.
An initiative’s progress is the share of milestones ticked across all of its climbs, and a pillar’s progress is the average of its initiatives. Choose an initiative to see its climbs quarter by quarter.
Done when every clinic takes its bookings on the new engine, and the old engine is switched off.
- Q1Apr to JunDesign the new booking engineARDone4 of 4 milestones
- Q2Jul to SepRun 20 pilot clinics on the new engineIFDone5 of 5 milestones
- Q3Oct to DecCompanyOnline booking loads in under a second for clinic groupsAROn track7 of 12 milestones
Choose an initiative to see its climbs.
In October, Megan signed Wrenfield Physio, a group of 14 clinics. During the sale, Wrenfield was told that its clinics would share one waiting list by January. The work was not in any climb or initiative.
Each team had its own record of the promise. The deal was in the sales pipeline, Wrenfield’s question was in the support tickets, and a new item was in the backlog. On Monday, Chloe raised it as one issue on the Leadership list, and the leadership team solved it in its huddle on Tuesday.
Solving an issue can record the outcome as a decision. The team agreed how Sales promises dates from now on, and put the waiting list on Booking’s long-term issues for the planning session in December. Hugo called Wrenfield that afternoon to agree a new date.
Step through the week to raise the issue and solve it.
- Sales pipelineMDWrenfield Physio14 clinics · Won 12 October
Promised one waiting list across all 14 clinics by January.
- Support ticketsCATicket from Wrenfield Physio13 November
When will our clinics share one waiting list? We were told January.
- BacklogIFShared waiting list across clinicsAdded 13 November · Not in a sprint
Asked for by Wrenfield Physio. No date agreed with Booking.
Every team at Pintail has more ideas for a quarter than it can finish alongside its sprint work. Booking’s planning session for January to March starts with eight candidates, from the roadmap, from Sales and Customer Success, and from the engineers.
Each team chooses three to five climbs. Every other candidate is set for next quarter or goes on the team’s long-term issues list, which the team looks at again at its next planning session. Wrenfield’s waiting list is already on Booking’s long-term list from the leadership huddle.
Change the order with the arrows and move the line to choose Booking’s climbs. The other teams have already confirmed theirs.
- 1Switch off the old booking engineRebuild the booking engine
- 2Clinic groups share one waiting list across clinicsLong-term issue
- 3Patients move their own appointments onlineCustomer Success
- 4The diary opens in under a second at the front deskEngineers
- 5Clinics take online bookings for group classesSales
- 5 climbs
- 6Text reminders cut no-shows by a fifthProduct
- 7Booking pages pass an accessibility auditEngineers
- 8Clinics set their own cancellation rulesCustomer Success
Book a demo and we’ll show you how Headwater would run your week, from the vision down to Monday morning.