The Eyes Closed Moonshot
- joragill7
- Oct 14, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 18, 2022
The world of Technology initiative delivery appears to be polarised; Agile or Waterfall.
The traditional, Waterfall, approach involves a huge period of time between concept and customer first contact. It assumes that the product and engineering team know exactly what the customer wants because a Business Analyst has documented it, and what they produce will do a fine job of meeting these requirements.
In the majority, but not all, of cases this approach takes a huge amount of time to deliver the wrong thing.
Alternatively, there’s Agile. Do as little work as possible before putting something in front of the customer, ask them if this works for them and respond to their feedback.
On the face of it, the chances of getting a solution that works for the customer with this approach seems to be much higher, assuming your first step is in the right direction.
That’s a massive assumption and something that proves the downfall of many Agile projects.
The Start of an Unhealthy Relationship
How do you start your initiative? How do you know what to include in that first deliverable? How do you know who the customers are? Do you actually know where the moon is for your moonshot? If you need funding, how much do you need to ask for?
It’s this last question that drives most initiatives, be they within an enterprise or in a startup.
In an enterprise, you will need to release funding to get your initiative off the ground. This generally means completing some form of business case. The process to negotiate scope, align resources, identify risks, write-up, review and approve this document for submission takes time; a lot of time. I have experienced an 18 month Business Case phase for a 9 month delivery phase!
By the time this is signed off you already have an unhealthy relationship with the product - you want, you need, the project to succeed, you have already become too distanced from the business value you are supposed to be delivering. You have fallen for the product, not the problem.
You have already committed, the organisation has committed, it’s in a detailed budget somewhere, it’s in business plans, it’s on a roadmap.
It’s already too big to fail!
Start Your Relationship off on the Right Foot
How do you avoid this unhealthy relationship?
Answer the question, “Do all stakeholders have a common understanding of the opportunity?”. This should include:
Solution Fit: What does it need to do and can we afford it?
Change Delivery: How will its delivery be managed?
Culture & Capability: Will individuals in the organisation be open to this change?
Technology Fit: How well do you know the technology involved?
Business Change: Who are all the stakeholders in the business?
Service Operations: How will it be operated?
Cost: Ballpark cost range to deliver the Minimum Viable Product
Answer these on a single sheet of paper and make sure that all the stakeholders are asked for their input and approval - I would suggest going into a single session with all of the stakeholders and not coming out until it’s agreed.
Make sure that everyone, Finance included, understands that this is a ballpark estimate. It’s probably best to budget for the upper end of this range of costs.
We call this Definition.
If you are working in an enterprise and you are planning for the next budget cycle, perform your Definition during planning, don’t wait until someone is pressing to deliver the initiative before working out where the moon is!
If you are in a startup, perform your Definition, get some feedback from within the company and potential customers and then make the decision to carry on, stop or pivot. In fact you should get this feedback regardless of the type of organisation.
This way, when your initiative does lift-off, you will at least know where the moon is, whether you choose Agile or Waterfall from that point on is a whole other question!
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