Interesting concept. Out of curiosity, how many years have you used this in production? I ask b/c it seems the equation weights longer duration items less, which may cause you to delay starting them in favor of shorter duration ones, when sometimes you may have needed to start the longer duration ones sooner because they take longer to complete (say, to meet a soft or hard deadline 1-3yrs in the future). If you’ve used this in production for at least 3yrs, I’m curious if you’ve ever done a postmortem and realized you should have started a longer-duration task sooner, but were steered away from it by this calculation. And if so is there a way of accounting or adjusting for that?
Deadlines and long efforts that require starting sooner rather than later can take on interesting urgency profiles. In effect, we should start efforts at the last responsible moment. If start later, that could take cause poor economic outcomes. That's how 1-3y could have high CD3 and "win out". Not sure if that make sense....
Oh I see, yes that makes sense. Work backwards from the deadline, estimate the latest possible responsible start date, and the closer you get to that more the task moves up the urgency scale. Then I suppose it’s still possible there are tasks that are urgent+valuable+short duration which could still trump the urgent+valuable+long duration one, until you reach that latest responsible start date. Then the latter must start regardless of how many of the former there are.
Extra perspective to your example: Size is also a derivative of urgency and value. If someone wants a project badly, they can create a new box for it to separate out the "small valuable bit" from the "average 1-3y" parts. If they won't do so, then it is inherently less important/valuable/costly than the alternatives of equal weight and smaller size.
I love this ! I usually struggle with getting teams to understand the urgency/value matrix and we tend to put the things we consider important at the best place on the matrix so they're prioritized. This seems like it forces you to actually have the right conversations.
When you do this exercise with a team, how do you lead the workshop ? Everyone stands around discussing initiative after initiative, or does the "owner" of the initiative present it and everyone discusses ?
This give a result, but does that result have any real coherence?
i.e the subjectivity in the urgency assessment, multiplied by the subjectivity in the value assessment, multiplied by the subjectivity on the sizing duration assessment leads to a LOT of inherent "error bars" in the placement. i.e the cost of delay calculation.
Add in the impact of various biases in the decision making process and I would look at this as a lot of time spent to get a false sense of "priority". It "feels" good, but what is it measured against.
I've posited an experiment which I'd love to try. Do this (or any other bottom up "prioritization" exercise), but break out the participants into 2 or 3 independent teams. (e.g. 2 or 3 peer teams or a team of leaders, vs. a team of middle managers etc.)
Have them go through the process and then compare the results. I would bet there is a LOT of divergence in those results mostly due to the biases and subjectivity of the process.
No prioritization framework is more important than the conversations it triggers. As conversations go, the conversations that seem to bubble up from this exercise are more effective than others I've had, so in that sense I find it useful.
One of the benefits of this approach is that it does not strive for false precision, yet at the same time it triggers conversations about the build blocks (value, urgency, effort) in a way that doesn't oversimplify. Again, this is based on my personal experiences, and the experiences of people who eventually took my course. I can't speak outside of that.
Agreed. It is a conversation. I think that the quality of the conversation and the decision quality is really important, not simply for the instance of that conversation, but for the ongoing alignment it can help drive. I've not found bottom up conversations to be truly fruitful. They feel good, and they are better than nothing, but those are both low bars.
I think the conversations that need to be had start with alignment at the top.What are we trying to achieve or what do we need to achieve (in various timeframes) is the first level of alignment. Starting with urgency leads without aligning on objectives doesn't help with alignment of purpose.
Anyway, lots to say on this. Maybe a blog post is in order. :-)
In the article, above the last graphic where John says "CD3 = COD / Duration", this seems to be a neat little derivation/observation that the work done in the preceding steps is basically a "trick" to arrive at a CD3 level prioritization list in a step by step indirect way. Perhaps the insinuation is that it's therefore more effective as otherwise a direct CD3 analysis might get bogged down trying to consider every factor for every goal at once. It's a neat trick! Though it also seems to be, well, better lol. I'm a fan and planning to try it. Would love to hear the author's thoughts on comparative methods.
Interesting concept. Out of curiosity, how many years have you used this in production? I ask b/c it seems the equation weights longer duration items less, which may cause you to delay starting them in favor of shorter duration ones, when sometimes you may have needed to start the longer duration ones sooner because they take longer to complete (say, to meet a soft or hard deadline 1-3yrs in the future). If you’ve used this in production for at least 3yrs, I’m curious if you’ve ever done a postmortem and realized you should have started a longer-duration task sooner, but were steered away from it by this calculation. And if so is there a way of accounting or adjusting for that?
Deadlines and long efforts that require starting sooner rather than later can take on interesting urgency profiles. In effect, we should start efforts at the last responsible moment. If start later, that could take cause poor economic outcomes. That's how 1-3y could have high CD3 and "win out". Not sure if that make sense....
Oh I see, yes that makes sense. Work backwards from the deadline, estimate the latest possible responsible start date, and the closer you get to that more the task moves up the urgency scale. Then I suppose it’s still possible there are tasks that are urgent+valuable+short duration which could still trump the urgent+valuable+long duration one, until you reach that latest responsible start date. Then the latter must start regardless of how many of the former there are.
Extra perspective to your example: Size is also a derivative of urgency and value. If someone wants a project badly, they can create a new box for it to separate out the "small valuable bit" from the "average 1-3y" parts. If they won't do so, then it is inherently less important/valuable/costly than the alternatives of equal weight and smaller size.
I love this ! I usually struggle with getting teams to understand the urgency/value matrix and we tend to put the things we consider important at the best place on the matrix so they're prioritized. This seems like it forces you to actually have the right conversations.
When you do this exercise with a team, how do you lead the workshop ? Everyone stands around discussing initiative after initiative, or does the "owner" of the initiative present it and everyone discusses ?
Hi Sarah! If you contact me on LinkedIn, I would be happy to share more details/notes.
This give a result, but does that result have any real coherence?
i.e the subjectivity in the urgency assessment, multiplied by the subjectivity in the value assessment, multiplied by the subjectivity on the sizing duration assessment leads to a LOT of inherent "error bars" in the placement. i.e the cost of delay calculation.
Add in the impact of various biases in the decision making process and I would look at this as a lot of time spent to get a false sense of "priority". It "feels" good, but what is it measured against.
I've posited an experiment which I'd love to try. Do this (or any other bottom up "prioritization" exercise), but break out the participants into 2 or 3 independent teams. (e.g. 2 or 3 peer teams or a team of leaders, vs. a team of middle managers etc.)
Have them go through the process and then compare the results. I would bet there is a LOT of divergence in those results mostly due to the biases and subjectivity of the process.
No prioritization framework is more important than the conversations it triggers. As conversations go, the conversations that seem to bubble up from this exercise are more effective than others I've had, so in that sense I find it useful.
One of the benefits of this approach is that it does not strive for false precision, yet at the same time it triggers conversations about the build blocks (value, urgency, effort) in a way that doesn't oversimplify. Again, this is based on my personal experiences, and the experiences of people who eventually took my course. I can't speak outside of that.
Agreed. It is a conversation. I think that the quality of the conversation and the decision quality is really important, not simply for the instance of that conversation, but for the ongoing alignment it can help drive. I've not found bottom up conversations to be truly fruitful. They feel good, and they are better than nothing, but those are both low bars.
I think the conversations that need to be had start with alignment at the top.What are we trying to achieve or what do we need to achieve (in various timeframes) is the first level of alignment. Starting with urgency leads without aligning on objectives doesn't help with alignment of purpose.
Anyway, lots to say on this. Maybe a blog post is in order. :-)
Nice technique, I will have to try it out.
What does CD3 mean?
Do you have this saved as a Miroverse template by any chance?
Thanks a lot!
Far as I can tell CD3 is this: https://www.haveignition.com/what-is-product-management/the-product-management-dictionary-cd3 - tldr, it's cost, desirability, differentiation, and doability. If you can figure those things out, weighted against other things (and themselves weighted internally!) then you can come up with prioritization.
In the article, above the last graphic where John says "CD3 = COD / Duration", this seems to be a neat little derivation/observation that the work done in the preceding steps is basically a "trick" to arrive at a CD3 level prioritization list in a step by step indirect way. Perhaps the insinuation is that it's therefore more effective as otherwise a direct CD3 analysis might get bogged down trying to consider every factor for every goal at once. It's a neat trick! Though it also seems to be, well, better lol. I'm a fan and planning to try it. Would love to hear the author's thoughts on comparative methods.
Anyway, that was just my take :)
I do something similar with AMMERSE. There are seven values, to aid the discussion as well decision making and prioritisation.
This is really good!
I think the last sentence implicitly refers to people burning the magician once the trick has been executed. :)