Stepping Back for a Broader View

We’ve looked at some of the ways that, even in the absence of artificial deadlines, real reasons exist for getting things done by a particular time. In those cases, you are likely better off reducing what you get done than missing the date. In most cases, however, what’s late just gets left behind. The reduction in scope is a natural consequence, and it’s up to you to make the best outcome you can of the situation.

When you’re not bound to a hard date, then you can shift the focus to asking which scope brings you value. In general, realizing a small amount of value earlier is better than delaying it until you can realize a large amount of value all at once. Not only do you start accumulating value earlier, defraying some of the development cost, but you may learn something important. You might need to change your plans.

There are many coordination and collaboration reasons to look ahead. If no man is an island, rarely is a software development team, either. Others may be dependent on your work and deserve to be kept apprised of when you might be ready for them. You may be dependent on others’ work, and want to keep them aware of when you’ll need it. In both cases, you’re trying to smooth the flow of work that weaves through multiple hands. These coordination points may be the most expensive parts of the whole operation, as they’re where the most delays arise.

There are a lot of aspects to changing plans. Sometimes you’re changing other plans to accommodate the reality of your current progress. Sometimes you’re changing the expectations of others for the same reason. Sometimes you’re altering the plans of your current work to bring it to a meaningful conclusion at an earlier date. And sometimes you’re deciding to abandon the work you’re doing, as it’s not looking promising that it will provide the expected cost-benefit ratio. In all of these scenarios, it makes more sense to respond to the reality you see than to close your eyes and forge ahead with plans made on obsolete information.

For all these various reasons, you’ll find yourself estimating different subsets of the work, for different audiences, and with different needs for accuracy, precision, and direction of error. That’s hard work, and you’re bound to get some of them wrong. What do you do when that happens? We’ll explore that in the next chapter, Chapter 7, ​When Estimates and Actuals Differ​.