Agile, with all its iterations
can hardly be described as efficient
Agile isn’t efficient.
What it is, is effective.
But is it COST-effective?
Welcome to Development That Pays
the channel dedicated to PROFITABLE software development.
My name is Gary Straughan
We do an episode like this every Wednesday.
If this is your first time here
it would be great if you’d SUBSCRIBE
and hit the bell icon to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
Today I’m going to do some mathematical magic
I’m going to show you that 1 + 1 = 3.
At least.
Two tasks
Each of similar size
Each likely to take a week.
To keep the maths simple, I’m going to say that each is
ONE unit of work.
I have two basic choices.
I could work on them concurrently
Or I could work on them sequentially
To the annoyance of some of you,
I'm going to ignore factors such as context switching.
Again, I want to keep the maths simple.
The maths we need right now, is the speed of working.
In this case, 2 units of work divided by two weeks.
That's a speed of 1 unit of work per week.
But it this case it's…
Oh.
2 units of work... 2 weeks.
A speed of 1 unit of work per week again.
Hmm.
I was rather hoping that a 3 might appear.
Perhaps I need to look at this from a different angle.
Perhaps I need to look at it from a different point of view.
The point of view of a customer.
The customer doesn't know - nor care -
about how long a particular chunk of work took to me do
She's only interested in - she can only see!
- the value that it provides.
And she can only see the value that it provides
when it's complete.
When it's live.
So these things we worked on provide zero value
zero value.
And then they go live
The customer is now able to receive the value.
What's great is that the thing that took just a week or two to build
will provide value for much longer than that.
But I want to focus on theee three weeks
Two units of work in.
Two units of value out.
I think you’ll find the second example more interesting.
The first item delivers a chunk of value in week two
Item two comes on stream in week three.
and its value “stacks up”
Oh look!
Two units of work in.
THREE units of value out.
1 + 1 = 3.
Bu I’m just getting warmed up.
What if I have not two but ten tasks?
TEN units of work
If I wait until they’re all done and dusted,
all of the value appears in week 11.
10 units of work in, 10 units of value out.
But if I release as I go along,
the picture looks very different.
The value stacks up.
I’ll save you the trouble of counting the squares:
10 units of work in.
55 units of value.
That’s what I call cost-effective.
Thank you very much for watching
If you enjoyed this episode
Please click to LIKE
SHARE it with your network
And hit the logo
to subscribe for a new video every wednesday
I look forward to seeing you again very soon
Cheers for now.