"It's not a math problem" The Cost of Delay Part 3 w/ Dean Stevens

In our third podcast focusing on Cost of Delay, LeadingAgile’s Dean Steven explains how he has used Cost of Delay with management working on defining priority for items at the portfolio level. Dean also explains why the problem Cost of Delay helps you solve is not a math problem, but a collaboration problem. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:56 Some background on the work Dean does day to day for LeadingAgile 01:43 Does Senior Mgmt. normally have a specific technique for prioritizing work across the portfolio? 02:40 Clarifying teams at the project, program and portfolio management 03:33 How does a team work at the portfolio level 04:27 What is a Business Architect 05:20 Why do we need Cost of Delay and what question does it help us solve? 06:35 It’s not a math problem, it’s a collaboration problem 07:12 How Cost of Delay will help you develop an understanding of relative business value 09:00 How to calculate Cost of Delay = (User Business Value + Time Criticality + Opportunity Enablement) / Effort SWAG 11:57 Defining Opportunity Enablement 13:18 What happens after all the work is sized? 15:40 When you get to re-estimate the values in Cost of Delay and adjust the relative priority 16:04 An example of how Dean used CoD with a client to align multiple programs of work across the organization and define relative priority for each of them 17:44 It’s not a math problem, it’s a collaboration problem 20:15 Dean’s focus on the portfolio level with Cost of Delay 21:38 Ordering vs. Prioritizing 22:18 Validating your understanding of relative User Business Value 23:40 Using the data and the math to figure out where to point the compass 24:46 What is an MVP? 25:13 Where to go for more information on Cost of Delay 25:57 How to to get in touch with Dean 26:19 Podcast Ends LINKS FROM THE PODCAST An Overview of Cost of Delay with Jim Hayden https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/an-overview-of-cost-of-delay-with-jim-hayden-and-dave-prior/ Calculating Cost of Delay with Marty Bradley https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/calculating-cost-delay-marty-bradley/ The Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen http://amzn.to/2m6u0xL CONTACTING DEAN You can reach Dean: LeadingAgile https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dean-stevens/ CONTACTING DAVE You can reach Dave: On the LeadingAgile site On Twitter at twitter.com/mrsungo On his personal site at: drunkenpm.net FEEDBACK/QUESTIONS If you have comments on the podcast, or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com LEADINGAGILE CSM AND CSPO CLASSES For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.