One of the main principles of Lean-Agile Software Development is to deliver fast and in small increments. Breaking a large system into multiple increments and delivering some of them early has many benefits to both the business and the customer such as: Earn returns for delivered value sooner. Obtain customer feedback sooner to clarify future features. Capture more market share due to early mover advantage. Reduce risk of obsolescence due to late delivery.
While these benefits are somewhat intuitive, how can we better illustrate and quantify such benefits? From a financial, cash-flow perspective, there are three main business benefits of switching from one single release to multiple release increments:
- Sooner Break-Even
- Smaller Investment
- Higher Net Return
A visual model helps to reinforce and quantify them. In the following 4min demonstration I am using a simplified model to illustrate the above benefits:
The above demonstration is based on the book “Lean-Agile Software Development – Achieving Enterprise Agility” by Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver and James Trott. (See chapter 2: The Business Case for Agility) I believe that having such dynamic visualizations can help explain these benefits and thus make a more compelling business case for using Lean-Agile Software Development.
Business Benefits of Two-Increment Release
Click on the above graphic to interact with the dynamic model using the Wolfram CDF Player.
visualign 
David Koontz
December 17, 2014 at 9:30 am
Thanks for the awesome visual tool to explain in 5 min. what a hallway conversation never seems to get across (and not in 5 min.). Now I’ve got another tool – technique for helping achieve shared understanding!