In everything we do there should be some value – some importance in what we do. If not, then why do it?

Without any worth, the thing that you’re doing becomes a chore or you can easily drift on to something else. So we need to see the value in what we’re doing.

However, as a team we don’t always see the value at the same time; depending on your point of view you will see the value at different stages.

Who has the Value?

On a project there a many people involved and they’re all looking for the “Value“, i.e what is in it for them?

• A Developer sees the value when they create the changes they’ve been asked to work on. However, is there always value in the work that they’ve done? – Not if its buggy and nobody uses it.
• A Scrum Master sees the value when they see the team working as a self organising team, with the stories being moved into “Done”.
• A Product Owner sees the value when the release is made and they can explain to the stakeholders what improvements have been made? What would happen though if the market has moved on and what we thought was valuable no longer is?
• To the Stakeholders they see the value when more customers come to use the product as it is the market leading one.

As you can see, to each of the people involved in the process the value comes at different times. It is only when the product reaches the customer that the true value is attained – until that time we’re carrying “Value Debt”.

Why do we view the importance of timescale and budget when assessing the success of a project? Why do we place so much emphasise on project timescales and meeting the guesses made at the start of the project? That isn’t where the value is as we’ve seen from the above example.

Timescales?

Timescales are important but they are not THE most important thing. They are an indicator, an attribute, to the project but once they’ve been achieved they don’t deliver any further value.

Unless there is a time specific reason, no Customer will ever buy something due to the product being there on time if the functionality / worth / value isn’t there.

We must never lose the value of why we do something.