Cost of Decision Delays

by César Idrovo, Luke Hohmann

Collaboration at Scale includes making important choices about sequencing work. The goal, as always, is to maximize the value of the product resulting from the work of the development teams. An important tool that many Scrum teams are using to help sequence work calculating the "Cost of Delay", which can be defined simply as "what would it be worth to us if we could get this backlog item earlier than another backlog item?". The Cost of Delay is a key factor in both the CD3 (Cost of Delay Divided by Duration) and "Weighted Shortest Job First" algorithms for sequencing work. Unfortunately, the Cost of Delay estimates used by many organizations do not factor in the Cost of Decision Delays, or the time it takes for leaders to make choices. In this Collaboration at Scale webinar, we'll explore both the Cost of Delay and the Cost of Decision Delays and provide frameworks that can help teams make choices that do a better job of maximizing value.

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Resource Files

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Presenter(s)

César Idrovo

César Idrovo is Senior Director at Lab Zero, a San Francisco based product development consulting company where he heads the Business Agility practice. In his role as consultant and coach, César he helps leaders deliver great products, activate unstoppable teams and transform organizations. He holds a Master degree in Finance from London Business School and a Masters in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London.

Luke Hohmann

Luke Hohmann is the founder and CEO of Conteneo Inc. (formerly the Innovation Games® Company). Conteneo’s enterprise software platforms and professional services merge collaboration frameworks, data analytics, and domain expertise to help organizations optimize decision making in the areas of strategy, innovation, sales, product development, and market research. Luke is also cofounder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation (EVEF), a 501(c)3 nonprofit that that helps citizens, governments, and other nonprofit organizations collaborate at scale to solve technical and wicked problems. EVEF has been a leader in the Participatory Budgeting movement, helping citizens prioritize hundreds of millions of dollars through budget games. EVEF has also partnered with the Kettering Foundation to create Common Ground for Action, the first platform for scalable deliberative decision making. Supported by both Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, Luke is thankful for the thousands of colleagues from the Agile community who have donated their time to EVEF.