Professional Documents
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Mike Cohn
September 29, 2005
Mike Cohnbackground
Todays agenda
Prioritizing
Project
chartering
Working with the developers
Establish a financial model
Prioritizing
Why prioritize?
Percent
Users working
alone
Used 12%16% of
features
10-person
groups
Used 26%29% of
features
Factors in prioritization
Business value
trumps other
factors
Business value
Risk reduction
Change in relative cost
Learning / uncertainty
Learning / uncertainty
The purpose of a project
is to:
Deliver new capabilities
Generate new knowledge
Product knowledge
What
should we develop?
Project knowledge
How
Low
End Uncertainty
(What)
High
A waterfall approach
Low
Means Uncertainty
(How)
All slides copyright
2003-2005, Mountain Goat Software
Slides copyright 2000-2004, Michael W. Cohn
Low
End Uncertainty
(What)
High
An agile approach
Low
Means Uncertainty
(How)
All slides copyright
2003-2005, Mountain Goat Software
Slides copyright 2000-2004, Michael W. Cohn
Sliders
Think of
risk
reduction
knowledge generation
change in relative cost
as sliders that move business priority forward
or back
Prioritization based
solely on business
value
Do later
Prioritization based
solely on business
value
Do later
Linear
Exciters /
Delighters
Surveying users
guess
Or survey a small set of users (20-30)
functional question
How do you feel if a feature is present?
And
a dysfunctional question
Dysfunctional
form of
question
I am neutral.
I can live with it that way.
I dislike it that way.
Like
Expect
Neutral
Live With
Dislike
Functional Question
Dysfunctional
Question
Like
Expect
Linear
Neutral
Exciter
Q Questionable
Live With
Dislike
R Q
M Mandatory
R Reverse
I
Indifferent
Exciter
Linear
Mandatory
Indifferent
Reverse
Questionable
Aggregating results
21 62
43 39
Theme
What to include
Todays agenda
Prioritizing
Project
chartering
Working with the developers
Establish a financial model
Vision box
Press release
Magazine review
Source: Teamwork by Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto
All slides copyright
2003-2005, Mountain Goat Software
Slides copyright 2000-2004, Michael W. Cohn
10
Elevator statement
11
a box
to come up with 15
The challenge is distilling the list
to 3-4 key points
Sources: Agile Project Management by Jim Highsmith.
All slides copyright
2003-2005, Mountain Goat Software
Slides copyright 2000-2004, Michael W. Cohn
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Magazine review
Todays agenda
Prioritizing
Project
chartering
Working with the developers
Establish a financial model
14
date or features
But NOT both
Feature-driven projects
Project
Date-driven projects
Project
15
Value-driven projects
Making appropriate
jec t
tradeoff decisions ScProhedule
between date and 1.6x
features
1.25x
Committing to
maximizing value 1.15x
1.10x
Deferring tradeoff
x
0.9x
decisions
0.85x
Acknowledging
0.8x
uncertainty about the
product and the
0.6x
project
Initi al
Product
Def ini tion
Appr ov ed
Product
De fi nit ion
Require ment s
Spec ifi cation
Product
De si gn
Speci fica ti on
De ta iled
Des ign
Spec if ication
Accept ed
Soft wa re
Tradeoff matrix
Tradeoff Matrix
Fixed
Scope
Schedule
Firm
Flexible
Target
300+
story points
4-5 months
Resources
$400k
Low Defects
1 high bug
per month
16
Encourages iterations.
Stresses importance of
consistent focus on quality.
Provides insight into
progress.
17
Todays agenda
Prioritizing
Project
chartering
Working with the developers
Establish a financial model
18
e
nc
ep
io
ta
er
Period 2
Period 3
ar
ke
ta
cc
tit
pe
Period 1
Co
re
tu
Fu
Cu
rre
nt
cu
cu
st
st
om
om
er
Business model
19
An example
Q
Dev.
Cost
New
Revenue
Incr.
Revenue
Retained
Revenue
Oper.
Efficiencies
Net Cash
Flow
90,000
$2,000
88,000
30,000
$2,500
$1,600
$2,000
23,900
$3,750
$5,000
$2,000
$7,500
18,250
$3,750
$7,500
$2,000
$7,500
20,750
$7,500
$10,000
$4,000
$7,500
29,000
$7,500
$10,000
$4,000
$7,500
29,000
$7,500
$10,000
$4,000
$15,000
36,500
$7,500
$10,000
$4,000
$15,000
36,500
earn
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mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com
(303) 8102190 (mobile)
(720) 8906110 (office)
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com
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