Randall Munroe of XKCD with a nice example of why useful rules of thumb that apply well in one context don’t always apply elsewhere… I hear lots of these. People …
This time, it’s personal
We are about to see a significant shift of focus in personal computing. The smartphone is fast approaching saturation. It’s gotten to the point where if your parents don’t have a smartphone …
Why bother *quantifying* the Cost of Delay?
Quantifying the Cost of Delay of the things we are working on helps us with: Improving the ROI delivered with a scarce resource Managing the demands of multiple stakeholders Making sensible …
We can’t afford mismanagement
Horace Deidu recently started working at The Clayton Christensen Institute, to help further develop the theory of disruptive innovation. Here, he nails his thesis on the door of Wall Street: …
SAFe and Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
In 2012, when Dean Leffingwell launched the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) it was obvious the impact that Don Reinertsen’s teachings had on elements of the design. In particular, SAFe specifies Don’s recommended …
WSJF – Weighted Shortest Job First
What is WSJF? Weighted Shortest Job First is a scheduling algorithm (or if you prefer, prioritisation method) that maximises the amount of whatever it is you choose to “weight” by in …
Tribal Leadership
Interested in culture, and introducing change in organisations? Özlem Yüce has a great intro to the Tribal Leadership stages that is well worth a read. I want to expand on a couple …
Product Development Payoff Asymmetry
I recently gave a talk at a conference about “Tilting the playing field in product development”. I went through a number of “False Friends” – things that seem like a good …
Why are people afraid of estimating value?
When it comes to estimating value the biggest barrier is usually our own fixed-mindset. It is our prejudices and perceptions, fears and uncertainties that stop us from seeing what might be. …
Iterations vs Increments (Mona Lisa and Mrs Fox)
One of the best ways to tilt the playing field of Product Development is to take an iterative or incremental approach. What does this mean though? It is easy to get …
Innovation and cannibalization
How should we treat cannibalization when considering value and urgency? I have been asked this a number of times, usually in the context of quantifying the Cost of Delay. …
#Agile2014
We’re coming to Orlando! Serious teams, developers, managers and executives from over 40 countries are about to descend on an unsuspecting Orlando, Florida. There’ll be over 1,800 attendees exploring more than …
On Innovation
Q: What are the biggest obstacles organisations face when it comes to innovation? Three things: culture, culture and culture. This manifests in different ways in different organisations but at its …
#MIXIT14 – Prioritising ideas using Cost of Delay
Özlem Yüce is coming to Lyon, France to speak at MIXIT14! How can we survive in a world where stakeholders want it all – and they want it yesterday? Are …
Why failing fast is valuable
A while back I posted this quote from a BBC interview with Astro Teller, “Capitain of Moonshots” at Google[x]: You must reward people for failing, he says. If not, they won’t …
Don’t force feed I.T.
I got an interesting question the other day about speeding up the Fuzzy Front End and bringing it into focus. The question was about the size of things in the …
MoneyDev: quantifying value vs gut-feel
Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team was in trouble. After a successful 2001 season he was losing three of his best players but he had no …
Jobs to be done
What “job” do customers hire your product or service to do? A lot of the time, customers aren’t actually buying what you think they are. Let’s take Flappy Bird as …
Value, Urgency and Organisational “Maturity”
When people hear about Cost of Delay they sometimes doubt whether their organisation is ready for it. They say things like, “We don’t have the maturity for it”, or “We …