Tag Archives: planning

Planning, whether in a programme, porfolio or project, or just part of product development

No Strategy, No Future: Why Companies That Drift, Sink

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I was talking to my mate Ed the other day. It was one of those lets talk about anything conversations. We both have extensive consulting experience so perhaps it isn’t too surprising that we ended up talking about organisational strategy. Or the lack of it. A surprisingly high percentage of companies we have encountered lack an defined organisation strategy beyond “keep doing what we’re doing and hope”. Personally, I believe every company, regardless of size or industry, needs a strategy. Here’s why.
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Scope Creep v Flexible Scope – Undisciplined v Agile

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Bart asked “What do I do when agile is abused as an excuse for scope creep?” with the sub-text “You’re agile so you’re flexible, no?”. I say point out the difference between scope creep and flexible scope. Agile makes changing scope a zero sum game – that gives flexibility without the creepiness.
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Little’s Law – the basis of Lean and Kanban

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Sometimes I think it helps to go back to basics. And when using Lean Software Development, including Kanban, that means a man called Little and his Law. “Little’s Law” is a fundamental of queue theory and defines the relationship between Work in Progress (WIP), Throughput and Lead Time. It is the reason why Kanban teams try to limit WIP.
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How to spot a Product Owner’s Pet Requirements

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Everybody has pet requirements and product owners, being human, are no different. Unfortunately pet requirements are a real risk to software projects. We should all resist these pet requirements and do everything possible to kill them off ASAP and avoid building them. So how do you spot pet requirements
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It is ALL Number One Priority / It is ALL Must Have. Not true!

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If the customer claims everything on the product backlog is top priority, and by implication must have, then you’ve a bit of an education job ahead of you. You have to get the customer to the point where only one thing is top priority and even “must haves” are sorted into a priority order. There is a good chance some of those “must haves” turn into “would like to have” and in time disappear.
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What do you do when the business imposes an arbitrary deadline?

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My business stakeholders wanted the product launch to align with a major event in the political calendar – happens to have been the state opening of British parliament. The product was all about politics so launching simultaneously with a major political event made perfect sense to the business folk. The trouble was that this was just an arbitrary date as far as the development team was concerned. What do you do when the business imposes an arbitrary deadline?
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