Monday 15 June 2009

The value of learning

One key intangible benefit that may be learnt from the agile approach to fail early / fail often is that of learning. By this I mean the project team learns how to operate but also the business learns what the change could mean and how their requirements could be realised.

It's possible to articulate this as a tangible benefit in terms of cost avoidance but this is difficult to articulate. The cost avoided from re-implementing around an error or the value of implementing a right solution is hard to calculate.

The real value of learning should not be underestimated however.

Articulating options

When presenting a number of different solutions to a given problem there are two key elements:
1. What are the key points that describe each option and
2. What differentiates each option.

It is key in a paper discussing architecutral options that both are considered to allow the relevant group to make a decision.