Innovation is necessarily risky, being based on the concept of novelty; we are either trying a new idea, an existing idea in a new market, or maybe trying to create a new market altogether. Lean and agile principles help us deal with risks and unknowns, by focusing on validated learning, deferring decisions, responding to change, but even when we fail to apply them, we might sometimes achieve some level of “success” nonetheless. But what does “success” mean? Can we really appreciate the importance of an exploratory approach, of validating ideas as we go, without defining what success (and hence failure) does looks like? Going from a personal experience developing an innovative service for a large european company, where we failed to apply lean and agile principles, I explore the idea of success and how a project can be completed on time, on scope and on budget and win the hearts of customers, and still be a (bad) failure when we consider what could have been.

1. @EdMcBane
Redefining success and failure from a lean perspective
Fifty Shades
of
Fail

2. @EdMcBane
Francesco Degrassi
Enthusiastic yet pragmatic Lean Software Developer.
Uppish and cynical nihilist from time to time.

3. @EdMcBane
Lean Software Development & consultancy
High availability, security, scaling
Security sensitive & high uncertainty domains

4. @EdMcBane
Do lean/agile
improve our chances of success?

5. @EdMcBane
Diverging perspectives on success

6. @EdMcBane
What are the success factors
we do consider?

7. @EdMcBane
It’s a temporary group activity designed to
produce a unique product, service or result.
A project is temporary in that it has a
defined beginning and end in time, and
therefore defined scope and resources.
[A project] must be expertly managed to deliver
the on-time, on-budget results, learning and
integration that organizations need.
The project model
“
”from the PMI website

8. @EdMcBane
On time

9. @EdMcBane
On scope
▶ Somewhat fixed scope
▶ Ability to respond to change and value of
feedback are completely ignored
▶ Focuses on ability to execute rather than explore

10. @EdMcBane
On budget
Arbitrary. What if
▶ the budget is too high?
▶ going over budget is the best investment?

11. @EdMcBane
Scope + (time | budget) = estimates

12. @EdMcBane
Unclear business goal and success criteria,
unvalidated assumptions
“We want a traffic monitoring service integrated
into our PaaS offering to allow users to check
their bandwidth usage, uplink health and
provide real-time alerts.”
We want to increase the revenue for our PaaS offering.
We believe an integrated traffic monitoring service
featuring bandwidth monitoring, uplink health and real-
time alerts
will offer our clients better visibility into their deployments
that is worth a hefty premium.
Our goal is an increase of ARPU of 10€/m within 18 months.

13. @EdMcBane
Multiple possible causes
▶ Communication failure
▶ Mismatched roles
▶ Ignorance is bliss
▶ Success by revisionism

14. @EdMcBane
Local goals vs global goals

15. @EdMcBane

16. @EdMcBane
Knowledge has a marginal role

17. @EdMcBane
Potential value & time horizon
▶ Knowledge only has potential value
▶ Acting on knowledge realizes it
▶ Value of knowledge expires
▶ Different time horizons
○ individual
○ project, company, group
○ society, ...

18. @EdMcBane

19. @EdMcBane
Where does this lead us?

20. @EdMcBane
Waste and unrealized potential
▶ Unnecessary features
▶ Unnecessary delays
▶ Missed opportunities for learning
▶ Lost knowledge

21. @EdMcBane
Diminishing returns

22. @EdMcBane

23. @EdMcBane

24. @EdMcBane
Agility blindness
Time, scope and budget can’t measure the impact of:
▶ shorter lead times
▶ ability to respond to change
▶ learning cycles

25. @EdMcBane
What can we do?

26. @EdMcBane
Redefine success to consider
▶ Business value delivered
▶ Distribution of value over time
▶ Return(maximum or at least non negative)
▶ Knowledge gained (actionable within the company time horizon)

27. @EdMcBane
Some things to try out
▶ high-level, goal oriented metrics
○ partnership model based on profit sharing
▶ shift towards a product metaphor
▶ visualization of benefits from early delivery
▶ visualization of negative marginal returns
▶ a scientific approach...

28. @EdMcBane
Hypothesis driven development
Barry O’Reilly: http://barryoreilly.com/2013/10/21/how-to-implement-hypothesis-driven-development/
Jeffrey L. Taylor: http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/hypothesis-driven-development/229000656

29. @EdMcBane
▶ What is the business goal of the project?
▶ What are the success criteria?
▶ How would this {story | feature | task} move us towards that goal?
▶ Is it worthwhile from a value / cost perspective?
▶ Can we split it up?
▶ Is all this based on facts or assumptions?
▶ How can we validate those assumptions quickly and inexpensively?
▶ It’s done. What did we learn and how can we act on that?
▶ Is it time to pull the plug?
questions to keep in mind

30. @EdMcBane
Thanks!
@EdMcBane
fdegrassi@gmail.com
francesco.degrassi@optionfactory.net
http://www.optionfactory.net/blog