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NFJS2025

Introduction to Cost of Delay

Do you have too much work to do? Can’t decide what to do first? Consider using Cost of Delay to evaluate all the work you “need” or want to finish. Cost of Delay helps people understand even more than estimates and might change your mind about how you rank work.

One of the problems with using estimation to rank work is that estimates are guesses and they don’t help you understand the economics of the decision. When we change our thinking from duration or cost (from estimates) to value and scarcity (Cost of Delay), we change the conversation.

  1. Define Cost of Delay with examples of causes of CoD.
  2. The four parts of value.
  3. Understand how to discuss urgency and the value of a feature or project over time.
  4. Brief explanation of CD3 (Cost of Delay/Duration)
  5. Practice with some scenarios and debrief.
  6. Practice with at least one of your scenarios and debrief.
  7. How to use CoD to rank features and projects.

Johanna Rothman

About Johanna Rothman

Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” offers frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams learn to see simple and reasonable things that might work. Equipped with that knowledge, they can decide how to adapt their product development.

With her trademark practicality and humor, Johanna is the author of 18 books about many aspects of product development. She’s written these books:

  • Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility
  • Become a Successful Independent Consultant
  • Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer
  • Modern Management Made Easy series: Practical Ways to Manage Yourself; Practical Ways to Lead and Serve (Manage) Others; Practical Ways to Lead an Innovative Organization
  • Write a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts
  • From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams (with Mark Kilby)
  • Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
  • Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
  • Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, 2nd edition
  • Project Portfolio Tips: Twelve Ideas for Focusing on the Work You Need to Start & Finish
  • Diving for Hidden Treasures: Finding the Value in Your Project Portfolio (with Jutta Eckstein)
  • Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Project Schedule or Cost
  • Manage Your Job Search
  • Hiring Geeks That Fit
  • The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
  • Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)

In addition to articles and columns on various sites, Johanna writes the Managing Product Development blog on her website, jrothman.com, as well as a personal blog on createadaptablelife.com.

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