Cost of Delay: Why You Should Care, Part 6

I've outlined five potential costs of delay in the previous five posts:

• The delay from not releasing on time, part 1
• The delay from multitasking,part 2
• The delay from indecision, part 3
• The delay from technical debt, part 4
• The delay from other teams as part of a program, part 5

The real problem is this: Why should you care? Maybe you have a “sweet spot” in the way you start your projects or release them. “It just takes that long here.” (That's the sign of a system impediment.)

Let me show you two pictures. The first you've already seen, the back of the napkin, where you see the effect on your potential maximum revenue.

Now, let's try to calculate that cost of delay.

The longer your delay, the more your cost of delay moves your curve to the right. The more sales you lose out of the Maximum potential sales.

The longer it takes for you to release, the more sales you lose from the maximum potential sales. Wait a month to release? You lose a month of max sales. Wait a year to release? You lose a year of max sales.

Lost Sales Numbers Start to Look Big

That's right. Do those numbers start to look big and scary now?

You not only have aggravation and impediments in your current project from the delays from multitasking, technical debt, indecision, slowdowns from other teams, you lose the potential revenue from maximum potential sales, every week you don't release.

Now, I am not saying you should release horrible product. Goodness knows, we have enough of horrible product that barely works or doesn't work at all out in the field. I want to see great products! The idea behind this picture is so people understand that it is worth their while to consider change.

Consider Your Options

Change to shorter projects and release something useful faster. (See Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management or Create Your Successful Agile Project.)

Instead of whatever you currently use, change to agile or incremental lifecycles so everyone can see progress and release something useful faster. (See Project Lifecycles or Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management for an in-depth discussion of lifecycles. You have more options than just waterfall and agile.)

Adopt a more reasonable approach to the project portfolio, and make decisions more frequently. (Does anyone really think project portfolio decisions last a year? Come on.) (See Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects)

Consider paying off some technical debt that increases delays. I used the build system in my example. I could have used automated tests or the thousands of defects some of you have in your defect tracking systems. It's whatever prevents you from knowing you could release on a “moment's” notice. I would like that moment to be under an hour. I bet for many of you, less than a day would be a huge improvement.

Optimize for the entire project or program, not a specific feature or team. Too often, I hear, “My part is done.” That does not matter. It matters what the entire team, project, or program finishes.

Finishing Matters

In my talks about project portfolio management, I like to say, “It doesn't matter how many projects you start, it matters how many you finish.”

With Cost of Delay, it matters when you finish them. Because until you finish them, no one pays you. That's right. No revenue until the team finishes.

I have taken a high-level approach to Cost of Delay in these posts. I wanted to simplify it so you and I could understand it, a zeroth approach, if you will.

Cost of delay is why you cannot take an ROI or use date or budget estimates to manage the project portfolio. This is why you must use value. I look forward to your comments.

COD Series:

• Cost of Delay: Not Shipping on Time, Part 1
• Cost of Delay Due to Multitasking, Part 2
• Cost of Delay Due to Indecision, Part 3
• Cost of Delay Due to Technical Debt, Part 4
• Cost of Delay Due to Other Teams' Delay, Part 5
• Cost of Delay: Why You Should Care, Part 6

Jutta Eckstein and I gathered all of these posts into a book: Diving for Hidden Treasures: Uncovering the Cost of Delay in Your Project Portfolio.