Cost of delay part 1 was about not shipping on time. Cost of delay part 2 was due to multitasking. Cost of delay part 3 was due to indecision. This part is the cost of delay due to technical debt. One of the big problems in backlog management is ranking technical debt stories. It’s even […]
In Part 1, we discussed the cost of delay of not shipping on time. In Part 2, we discussed the cost of delay of multitasking. In this part, we’ll discuss a cost of delay due to management indecision. Here’s a problem I encounter often. A middle manager calls me, and asks for an estimation workshop.
In Cost of Delay: Not Shipping on Time, Part 1, I introduced you to the notion of cost of delay. I said you could reduce the cost of delay by managing your projects: have shorter projects, using release criteria, or selecting a lifecycle that manages the risk. Sometimes, you don’t have short projects, so projects
Do you know about the Cost of Delay? It’s the way to think about the revenue you can lose plus the cost of continued development. One of my managers many years ago had a back of the napkin approach to cost of delay. “Johanna, we want to ship this product in the second quarter this
There’s a great comment to my recent Management Myth: Performance Reviews Are Useful. The writer has these questions, which I have paraphrased: 1. How do bonuses work? Here’s the problem with bonuses in a team-based organization (agile or not). How can you tell who has done which work? Who actually knows who has contributed what?
I have received some wonderful feedback from some of my managers. Back when I was a young engineer, one of my managers gave me the feedback at an annual review that I didn’t quite finish my projects. “Oh, you mean on the project I just finished last week?” I wanted to know if it was
While I was on vacation in early January, there were two interviews posted on InfoQ: Ben Linders interviewed Esther Derby, Don Gray, and me about the Change Artistry book. I’m really pleased about the way the interview came out. Thanks, Ben! Back at Agile 2013, Shane Hastie interviewed me. The interview is here. We spoke
I’ve met many managers who were in the wrong position. Sometimes, it was the Peter Principle. Sometimes, it’s managers who have been founders or who have been technically great and got promoted into management positions. Because they are so intelligent, and because they do not read about management, they don’t know or don’t care about
I had a boss who was great at saying, “Terri did this. Jen did that. JR did this other thing.” We all knew who had learned about different areas of the system, who had succeeded at which parts of testing or development or project management. It was great. She didn’t just tell us. Nope, our
I just finished the electronic version of Manage Your Job Search, integrating my comments from my beta reviewers. I’m getting the book ready for print and audio now. One of my realizations is that a job search is an emergent project. As much as you might want to, you cannot predict an end date. Other