AgileCamp Dallas: Unpacking Business Value (Mironov)
5 likes1,879 views
The document discusses the importance of identifying and maximizing business value in software development through effective prioritization and customer feedback. It highlights the need for organizations to align product development with actual market outcomes and to navigate trade-offs in resource allocation while being mindful of customer satisfaction. Additionally, it emphasizes the significance of ongoing engagement with paying customers to understand their needs and improve product offerings.
AgileCamp Dallas: Unpacking Business Value (Mironov)
- 1. UNPACKING BUSINESS VALUE AgileCamp Dallas Rich Mironov @richmironov
- 2. • Process improvements: throughput, quality, building things right • Assumes strategic prioritization and useful market outcomes • Does “Business Value” still taste like customer success? Agile’s Focus on Velocity
- 3. There’s nothing more wasteful than brilliantly engineering a product that doesn’t sell, or a project that doesn’t matter.
- 4. • “The Business” separated from “The Team” • Assigned value, not market outcome • Early (fixed) estimates • Prioritizing unlike things algorithmically • Are paying customers saying “yum?” We’re Forgotten What Real Business Value Tastes Like
- 5. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- 6. • New product/service • Promise of future revenue • Feature/workflow improvement • Promise of future user happiness • Technical debt reduction • Promise of future velocity • Test automation, CI-CD • Promise of faster releases • System improvements • Promise of future operational savings Many Flavors of Business Value
- 7. Hypothesis: • Project business value estimates +/- 70% • 1 in 10 will deliver zero value Would that change portfolio planning and stakeholder interactions? Business Value Error Bars >> Development Error Bars
- 8. 1. Negotiate real trade-offs with decision-makers 2. Relative, like-with-like comparisons 3. Reality-based budgeting (projects don’t end) 4. Get closer with actual users (paying customers) What Can We Do?
- 9. Development can never build as fast as we can dream
- 10. • “CEO says it’s really important.” • “We already promised it to a big prospect.” • “How hard could it be? Probably only 10 lines of code.” • “We’ve been talking about this for months.” • “We’ve gone agile, which gives us infinite capacity...” • “My neighbor’s kid could do this in an hour.” Magical Thinking
- 11. • Most requests will go unfulfilled • Roadmap: what we are building (instead of new request)? • What commitments would we drop to add this? • Trade-offs among like items #1: Real Trade-Offs are EXCLUSIVE ORs (not ANDs)
- 12. Features for current release 50% Quality, test automa6on, tech debt 15% Management, overhead, 10% Future R&D, 5% One-‐offs, non-‐ roadmap 20% Typical Commercial Software Development Budget
- 13. Prioritizing Within Buckets #2. Prioritization within buckets
- 14. • Quick-sort top candidates • Let us negotiate complex issues • Live stakeholders around the table • WSJF assumes accuracy and independence that I rarely see Prioritization Algorithms Get Us 80% There
- 15. • Programs/products run for a very long time • Things we dropped from V1.0 • What we learn, new needs, platform evolution • Yet we budget as if projects end on ship date • Need sustaining budget until end-of-support #3: Reality-Based Budgets
- 16. • External customers pay our salaries • Measure satisfaction, adoption, usage, revenue • Meet them, hear their stories, look for joy #4: Get Closer to (Paying) Customers
- 17. • Talk in terms of paying customers • Use your own products • Listen in on customer calls/ interviews/UX tests* • Ask for success metrics • Look at revenue • Celebrate customer improvements Things You Can Do (This Week)
- 18. • Business Value is essential • Different flavors • Not precise enough for auto-sort • Sample what your real customers taste Take Aways
- 19. Rich Mironov Mironov Consulting San Francisco, CA rich@mironov.com 1.650.315.7394 twitter.com/richmironov linkedin.com/in/richmironov