Re: What is business value? Was: Estimating Costs Up Front

Corey Burnett wrote:

> "John Roth" <newsgroups@jhrothjr.com> wrote in message news:<10lbmlna1r6lb
41@news.supernews.com>...
> 
>
>
> I have to agree here.  I can think of lots of systems that I have
> built in the past that only really become usable and valuable to the
> customer when all of the major modules are completed and integrated.
> Let's say I'm building some sort of web-based data collection,
> analysis, and reporting tool for a small business.  I might come up
> with the following modules:  Login, User Management, Sales Data Entry,
> Product Data Entry, Reporting.  Usually it makes sense to start with
> login first so that is the first module I build.  After iteration 1 I
> have a system that you can log in to but it doesn't really do
> anything.  So then I build the User Management next because you have
> to be able to add, edit, and delete users.  Done.  So after iteration
> 2 I have a system that you can log in to and maintain users.
> Functions great but really offers no business value yet.  You can see
> where I am going.  The whole system doesn't really give the customer
> what they want until they can run the reports and see all of the
> product and sales data.  And that doesn't really happen until almost
> all of the modules are done.  If we stopped after we had the Login,
> User Management and Product Data Entry modules the customer really
> wouldn't have anything that would do anything for them.
>
> So when we talk about illusions (and people have mentioned earlier in
> this thread that fixed price, fixed scope software development (BDUF -
> big design up front) is an illusion), it seems to me that the XP
> promise of a usable system that provides business value after every
> iteration is also a bit of an illusion.
>
> Interested in what others think.
>
> Corey

What is business value?

We tend to think its fully working, fully developed systems meeting all
of the critical requirements...

But what about the other business values?

Schedule?  budgets? resources?

By implementing small sub-parts of the critical requirements in dribs
and drabs, with each passing iteration. The customers get to see REAL
working applications that meet those small sub-part requirements.

Sure these releases may well be useless for the customer to actually
deploy beyond into full use, but it does show them that they AND us are
moving towards the goal in the right direction.

It allows them to not only hear that the apps development is
progressing, but to actually see it progressing.

It allows them to get rapid feedback of this development, allowing them
to make changes, allowing us to make those changes.

Andrew