This is the presentation used during my lecture on the ScrumDay Chile 2015.
How can we prioritize better and improve our trade-off decisions? Use Cost of Delay!
4 topics covered:
1.- Why other methods fail
2.- How to determine the Cost of Delay
3.- How value changes over time (Urgency Profiles)
4.- Use CD3 to improve your prioritization
4. 1
The DON
Hello, my name is
If you only quantify one
thing, quantify the
cost of delay
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
5. 2 Value is rare and extreme
$0
$200,000
$400,000
$600,000
$800,000
$1,000,000
$1,200,000
$1,400,000
$1,600,000
$1,800,000
$2,000,000
$2,200,000
$2,400,000
$2,600,000
$2,800,000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
A small number of features have
a very high
Cost of Delay
CostofDelay/week
Requirements sorted by Cost of Delay
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
6. Top vs bottom quartile: 1,000x
$230,000/wk
$220/wk
Bottom
25%
Top 25%
of RQs
$18,600/wk
Next
25%
$5,200/wk
Next
25%
Average $ Benefits
Per Requirement
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
10. MoSCoW
Must Have
Should Have
Could Have
Won’t Have
ROI
Relative Cost
of Delay
Class of Service
Benefit-to-cost
ratio
4:1
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
12. Let’s prioritize!
Feature MoSCoW
A Must have
B Must have
C Must have
Which
one
should
we
do
first?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
13. Let’s prioritize!
Feature MoSCoW ROI
A Must have 10%
B Must have 15%
C Must have 8%
How
about
now?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
14. Let’s prioritize!
Feature MoSCoW ROI Relative
CoD
A Must have 10% 10
B Must have 15% 4
C Must have 8% 7
And
now?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
15. Let’s prioritize!
Feature MoSCoW ROI Relative
CoD
Revenue
/week
A Must have 10% 10 $100k
B Must have 15% 4 $15k
C Must have 8% 7 $800k
Are
you
sure?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
32. 15,985 monitors
By now we could
have bought
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
33. <<< 1 day
Time to break
even
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
34. Put a price-tag on time
$ Business
value of the
feature
Cost of
Delay
Information
Discovery Value How that value
varies over time
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
35. A framework for thinking about value
Increase
Revenue
Increasing sales to new or existing
customers. Delighting or Disrupting to
increase market share and size
Protect
Revenue
Improvements and incremental
innovation to sustain current market
share and revenue figures
Reduce
Costs
Costs that we are currently incurring,
that can be reduced. More efficient,
improved margin or contribution
Avoid
Costs
Improvements to sustain current cost
base. Costs we are not currently
incurring but may do in the future
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
36. Example: Cost of not having Monitors for Pair Programming
Start generating
revenue without
delay
Avoid paying 15%
more to achieve the
same outcome
Estimate the value of the effects of the change1
A couple of tactics for getting to $
Avoid
Costs
Reduce
Costs
Protect
Revenue
Increase
Revenue
$120$32,533
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
37. Make the value equal to cost of alternatives
Example: Automating a process
Avoid
Costs
Reduce
Costs
Protect
Revenue
Increase
Revenue
Cost of
human
error
Current
manual
cost
A couple of tactics for getting to $
2
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
39. Automating a Process
Automating a process to satisfy new regulation:
• Reduce the additional manual processing resource which
is estimated to cost about 20 FTEs at $20k (p.a.) per FTE
• Due to the current manual process, there is a 10%
probability of an error
• Once a month there’s an inspection. If an error is found,
the company has to pay a $5,000,000 fine
What is the cost of delaying this automation?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
40. Reduce Cost:
20 FTEs at $20k each per year
= $400,000 /year ~ $8,000 /week
Avoid Cost:
$5,000,000 in fines per month
* 10% Probability of finding an error
= Expected Value = $500,000 /month ~ $125,000 /week
Cost of Delay: ~ $133,000 /week
Automating a Process
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
41. Put a price-tag on time
$ Business
value of the
feature
Cost of
Delay
Information
Discovery Value How that value
varies over time
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
42. Willingness to pay
for the info?
Quantifying the value of information
Cost to obtain
info first-hand?
Information
Discovery
Value
What is it worth
to avoid taking
the wrong path?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
43. Put a price-tag on time
$ Business
value of the
feature
Cost of
Delay
Information
Discovery Value How that value
varies over time
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
45. For ideas with a very long-life, with peak unaffected by delay
Time
Cost of
Delay
$Benefits/week
Long-life, unaffected peak1
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
46. For ideas with a very long-life, with peak unaffected by delay
TimeLate Entry
Cost of
Delay
$Benefits/week
Long-life, unaffected peak1
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
47. For ideas with a very long-life, with peak unaffected by delay
TimeLate Entry
Cost of
Delay
$Benefits/week
Delay
Cost
Long-life, unaffected peak1
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
48. For ideas with a very long-life, with peak unaffected by delay
TimeLate Entry
Cost of
Delay
$Benefits/week
Delay
Cost
Long-life, unaffected peak1
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
49. Short benefits horizon, and reduced peak due to late delivery
TimeLate Entry
Reduced Peak
Delay
Cost
$Benefits/week
Short-life, affected peak2
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
50. For ideas with a very long-life, with reduced peak due to later delivery
TimeLate Entry
Reduced
Peak
Delay
Cost
$Benefits/week
Long-life, affected peak3
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
52. Automating a Process
Automating a process to satisfy new regulation:
• Reduce the additional manual processing resource which is
estimated to cost about 20 FTEs at $20k (p.a.) per FTE
• Due to the current manual process, there is a 10% probability of an
error
• Once a month there’s an inspection. If an error is found then the
company has to pay a $5,000,000 fine
• The new regulation will be effective starting 1st May 2016
• The duration of the implementation is estimated to be 13 weeks
What is the total delay cost by December 17th?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
53. Automating a Process
Automating a process to satisfy new regulation:
• Reduce the additional manual processing resource which is
estimated to cost about 20 FTEs at $20k (p.a.) per FTE
• Due to the current manual process, there is a 10% probability of an
error
• Once a month there’s an inspection. If an error is found then the
company has to pay a $5,000,000 fine
• The new regulation will be effective starting 1st May 2016
• The duration of the implementation is estimated to be 13 weeks
What is the total delay cost by December 17th? *Hint: ~19 weeks away
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
56. Feature Cost of Delay
X $133,000/week
Y $80,000/week
Z $1,000,000/week
Which one would you do first?
If these take the same amount of time to deliver:
Scheduling decisions
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
57. Cost of Delay Simulation
Feature Duration
(weeks)
Cost of Delay
(m)
A 5 $1
B 1 $4
C 2 $5
(BlackSwanFarming.com)
Which one should we do first?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
58. Cost of Delay Simulation
Time
ValuePotential
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
59. Cost of Delay Simulation
A
Time
ValuePotential
5431 2
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
60. Cost of Delay Simulation
$A
Time
ValuePotential
5431 2 6
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
61. B
Cost of Delay Simulation
$A
Time
ValuePotential
5431 2 6
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
62. B
Cost of Delay Simulation
$
$
$
$
$
A
Time
ValuePotential
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
5431 2 6
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
63. B
Cost of Delay Simulation
$
$
$
$
$
A
C
Time
ValuePotential
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
5431 2 6
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
64. B
Cost of Delay Simulation
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
A
C
Time
ValuePotential
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
5431 2 6
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
72. When time to deliver varies, use
Cost of Delay Divided by Duration
Cost of Delay
Duration
CD3
$ Business value
of the feature
Information Discovery
Value
How that value
varies over time
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
73. Cost of Delay Simulation
Feature Duration
(weeks)
Cost of
Delay (m)
CD3
A 5 $1 0.2
B 1 $4 4
C 2 $5 2.5
(BlackSwanFarming.com)
So again, which one should we do first?
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
80. Cost of Delay
Improves prioritisation
Enables better trade-off decisions
Changes the focus of the conversation
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015
82. People make decisions
Not the data, or an algorithm
Organisational
strategy
Technology
strategy
Start with CD3
‘initial triage’
Adjust CoD to
reflect strategy
State reasons for
adjustment
Additional levers? In the real world…
Prepared by Carlos Letelier & César Idrovo ScrumDay Chile 2015