Friday 29 May 2015

On the journey

So every journey begins with a single step..

Today I was running a session to elicit a list of potential projects with the business so that they could be further analysed by process and technology and then played back to the business again for a short-listing.

Its good to be back in the facilitator role again


Whilst we got the list of projects together in a reasonable time and some excellent debate was had, it was interesting to observe the worry in the room that there was not going to be a concensus on priority.  The concern seemed to be that either some "quick wins" that would be easy to deliver would make it in, or alternatively just a start on a more strategic journey that would deliver big benefit down the track, but not necessarily in the coming year.

Thankfully, I was able to speak to the concern using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and had printed out a copy of the formula and a description of the elements that make it up.  There seemed to be a real sense of calm coming back once I had explained the inputs and process and that there was an existing method to take stakeholders on a journey to a potential "straw man" priority list that they could then debate with some actaul "science" behind it.

I just hope they like the answer when I run the prioritisation workshop in a few weeks, I have yet to crack exactly how we are going to get an overall clear measure of "business benefit" here.

More to come..

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