BC2-Economic Prioritization of Improvements

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  3. Basecamp 2
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  5. BC2-Economic Prioritization of Improvements

Why

The System of Delivery likely suffers from significant legacy constraints that cannot be solved without addressing larger organizational structures and systems. This can include the structure of the organization, governance and funding mechanisms, technical dependencies, third party management, and even employee incentives. Some of these considerations may have been addressed early in the Transformation (during Define the End State), while other issues have been illuminated throughout the journey to Basecamp 1 and continuing into the Basecamp 2 journey. 
Where economically feasible and organizationally viable, it may be necessary to decouple and encapsulate organizational capabilities from each other so they can move faster and enable Adaptability in the System of Delivery.

How

Economic Prioritization of Improvements is an exercise of understanding the economic impact of significant legacy constraints. Much of the waste discovered earlier may have their roots in problem we address here. 

Unlike waste removal from previous steps, these items are extremely big and require buy-in from across the enterprise. It is harder to calculate economic impact for these things. Instead, we prioritize these legacy constraints by how they advance our capabilities. This conversation continues in Basecamp 3 as we fully decouple some of them. 

Analyze the problem and potential solutions and consider the economics. A refactoring plan could be the results of this. These problems can impede any of the 5 categories of assessment activities: 

  • Continuous Improvement 
  • Define the Product 
  • Delivery the Solution 
  • Organizational Enablement 
  • Plan and Coordinate

Success Criteria

  • An approved, prioritized plan exists to remove significant legacy constraints (structure of the organization, governance, technical dependencies, third party management, or employee incentives) in the System of Delivery

Supporting Material 

 Coaching Activities 

 

Create a plan to remove organizational dependencies 

Identify dependencies and partner with teams impacted to create a plan to remove the larger, cross-organizational dependencies to allow for continuous delivery 

 

Plan for Strategic Refactoring 

Big blockers across teams require extra attention to properly escalate. This is a conversation raised by the TLT to the larger organization about making investments in business capabilities to better deliver on our strategy 

 

Create a plan to remediate technical debt 

Decisions to repay technical debt should be economically justified 

Teams understand the difference between technical debt and defects 

 

Lean out governance, revisit structure etc. 

Validate the need for activities within the system that may not be needed as teams and practices have evolved 

Validate organizational structure to ensure right roles and right people  

 

Baseline release process  

Before we make the case for removing constraints, we need a consistent baseline to measure the impact of those constraints

 

Invest in technology improvements to support easier earlier releases 

From the CI/CD plan, fund investments targeted at simplifying releases. The spend should be justified by decreasing delay time for releases. Larger improvements may need to be addressed in Strategic Refactorings

Basecamp 2 Outcomes

Smaller Backlog Items     |      Sequence Work      |      Schedule For Completion      |      Strategic Alignment      |      Identify & Plan to Eliminate Waste      |      Economic Prioritization of Improvements