delivering business value with agile

Dr. David Michel

Delivering Business

Value with Agile

Impact

€

%

18 May 2017

64%of features rarely or ever used

Dr. David Michel

Delivering Business

Value with Agile

Impact

€

%

18 May 2017

Product Backlog

SprintBacklog

ProductIncrement

DailyScrum

Sprint

Hyper-productive teams

Sutherland, J., Downey, S., Granvik, B., (2009) Velocity of MySpace Teams by Sprint [Figure] In Shock Therapy: A Bootstrap for Hyper-Productive Scrum (p. 72)

Hyper-productive teams

Sutherland, J., Downey, S., Granvik, B., (2009) Velocity of MySpace Teams by Sprint [Figure] In Shock Therapy: A Bootstrap for Hyper-Productive Scrum (p. 72)

Peter Drucker

“There is surely nothing quite so

useless as doing with great

efficiency what should

not be done at all

Feature

A

Feature

B

Feature

C

Declaring Victory

Too Soon

Building the right thing

vs

Building the thing right

What does the Agile Manifesto says?

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer

through early and continuous delivery of

valuable software

“

”

What is it?

Price is what you pay…

…Value is what you get

Warren Buffet

“

Value =Benefits

Cost

Tangibles

Intangibles

If you cannot measure it,

you cannot manage it

• fuzzy numbers lead to fuzzy actions• Fuzzy numbers are more susceptible to manipulation

“”

But…

Not everything that can be

counted counts

And not everything that counts can be

counted

“

”

We cannot measure it…

…Yet, we are comfortable with health-driven practice

e.g. medicine

How to become value-driven?

Questions we are interested in…

• Are we on track?• How are we doing in terms of budget?• Will we be able to finish in time?

Questions we are interested in…

• Did this deliver value to the customer?• What impact did it have on their business?• Are they actually using the software?• Are we building the right thing?

• Are we on track?• How are we doing in terms of budget?• Will we be able to finish in time?

Refinement

Fidelity

http://availagility.co.uk/2009/12/22/fidelity-the-lost-dimension-of-the-iron-triangle/

Iterating vs. Incrementing

• Goal: deliver as much as possible• Output-driven, not outcome

Gojko Adzic

Business Value Model

Andy Pols

Increase Revenue

Reduce Cost

Protect Revenue

Avoid Cost

Chris Matts

Disciplined Learning

• Risk Reduction = Knowledge Acquisition

• “Pay to learn” Iterative

• “build business value” incremental

EPICFeatures

Mr. Product Owner

The Team

The conversations should include:

• How do we assess the impact on the business?

• How do we judge whether this was the right thing to build?

• Did this deliver value to the customer?• What impact did it have on their business?• Are they actually using the software?• Are we building the right thing?

Acceptancecriteria

Done

Done Done

Code completed, tested

Released into production

Done Done Done

Done

Done Done

Code completed, tested

Released into production

Worked out the value/benefit

User Stories were not considered complete until they led to validated learning

“”

• Could we not monitor the inventory before? Hmmm…. Unlikely!

• What impact/change do we expect on the business once this is implemented?

Reformatting the User Story format

We will (benefit/value)For our (role, persona)Because we have (what will the feature do)

As a (role, persona)I want (what will the feature do)So that (benefit/value)

As a user, I want to be able to make changes to my calendar and search without having to type on my iPhone, because it saves me time and hassle

We will save time and hassle, and increase safety for our users, because we have an intelligent personal assistant” that can make changes to calendars and search using a natural language user interface.

Sell with the benefit (outcome)Support with the feature (output)

Establish value-driven relationship with clients

Define “value dials”

Value-driven culture

Define Business value

currency

DevelopValue Metric

Strategy

Define “value dials”

Value-driven culture

Define Business value

currency

DevelopValue Metric

Strategy

Indicators of business value that may or may not map to the financial bottom line.

Define “value dials”

Value-driven culture

Define Business value

currency

DevelopValue Metric

Strategy

Analogous to “story point”, we can estimate how “valuable” a feature is

Define “value dials”

Value-driven culture

Define Business value

currency

DevelopValue Metric

Strategy

Depending on the phase of the project (start-up, scale, mature), the relative importance of the value dials might change

Decision based on value/cost ratio

Cost of raising the cow

Value of beef

Value of leather

Problem of shared cost

ROI analysis best used at the level of epics/themes rather than user stories

Usage as a measure of value

Using a product is, above all, a transaction. The user donates his time and attention, which are supremely valuable commodities. In return, you, the creator, must give her something worthy of her gift to you

”

“

Usage as a measure of value

• Do the users use the feature?• How often to do they use the feature?• For how long do they use the feature?

web technologies are particularly well suited to do this!

But only works if users are not mandated to use the software

Let’s wrap up

Output != Outcome

Fidelity

Scope is the variable

Problem of shared cost

ROI = value/cost

?

Communicate with valuenot features

Backlog size

Building the right thing ?

Value-driven

Iterative

@DavMichel76

david.michel@tessella.com