I often talk to people who have an idea for digital product and want to discuss how they might go about developing it. Recently I was speaking to others who have similar discussions with people, and we shared our general approaches. So here are two questions I ask when discussing the development of a new … Continue reading
Agile focuses on value. This is good but when it comes to prioritising we could be more refined than prioritising greatest value. Instead we should be focusing on fastest value, which is slightly different. The literature on cost of delay is where we find the explanation. It tells us to prioritise by something called “cost … Continue reading
A common part of the traditional risk management process is to run a risk workshop. This typically involves getting a group of stakeholders together at the start of a project, and asking what might go wrong. Not only is it a good thing to seek out problems before they happen, it is constructive if we … Continue reading
Rough estimates can be useful—they can help us understand whether or not it’s worth undertaking a piece of work, or whether it’s worth digging deeper. But there’s a well-known danger, too: they can be misremembered as promises. “About three months” can easily become “But you said three months”. The problem is often that although the … Continue reading
A while back I wrote about “The investigation “sick note” card”, in which I said I often found teams opted for investigation work as a way of avoiding doing the actual development work. Investigation isn’t a bad thing, but I felt that it’s purpose was often missed. Here I want to go into a bit … Continue reading
One of the most useful pieces of advice I’ve had on analysis is from Tom Gilb, when he talks about separating solutions (which he calls “design ideas”) from the outcomes we want to achieve. He’s primarily addressing the early stage of a project, before the build has begun. But it’s also relevant to the build … Continue reading
Generally speaking I encourage people to make their user stories smaller, not bigger. But I will long remember an excessively heated argument many years ago with my former colleague Mat Wall in which he was adamant that I was going too far by insisting on stories which where too small. In that case he was … Continue reading
I’ve been involved in the development of a number of product development processes—which is to say, the creation of the pipeline from idea to reality. The outcomes are always useful, and always sightly different. But there are commonalities, such as the breakdown of the process into various phases. These are usually combinations of Concept, Exploration, … Continue reading
The public like confident politicians who exude certainty and give clear answers. We get a feeling that they’ve got everything under control, and they’re the people to vote for. Equally, it’s frustrating when we hear them flim-flamming in the face of an apparently straightforward question. Why do they do that? Is it because they’re just … Continue reading
Some projects are hard, and the requirements are mysterious. They’re the kinds of things that look fine when you start, but sooner or later you get into some really nasty details. Should the third level of XML be in this format or that? Do they want us to use this URL scheme or that one? … Continue reading
