Delivering Early and Often Summary
The core message is that delivering value in small, usable increments—as opposed to one "big bang" release:
- significantly improves financial outcomes
- reduces risk
1. Incremental vs. Iterative Development
- Increment: This is the unit of delivery.
- It is a successive version of a product that is usable and adds user-visible functionality
- Terms like Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) emphasize the small size and independent value of an increment
- The process requires vertical slicing of a product, delivering sections of value rather than following a large, horizontal, batch-based process
- Iterate: This is the process designed to reach an increment and, crucially, to elicit feedback
- An iteration is a mini-run through the entire development cycle (analysis, design, programming, test)
- The result of an iteration may not be delivered to the market, but the feedback gained is used to refine the software in subsequent iterations.
2. Benefits of Delivering Early and Often
The practice offers benefits across the organization, driven by starting to use the product sooner:
| Category | Key Benefits |
|---|---|
| Financial | Earlier profits and cash flow, lower investment risk, and a sooner break-even point. |
| Marketing | Shorter planning horizon, earlier and more reliable customer feedback, and a consistent image of product improvement. |
| Engineering | Lower technical complexity, early field experience with technology, and spread technological commitments. |
| Other | Accelerated learning and more motivated teams. |
3. Implementing Incremental Delivery (Slicing)
The challenge lies in splitting a large, complex idea into smaller, independently valuable parts This requires developing a mindset to split dependencies and using different criteria (prisms) to decide where to slice the idea, including:
- Value
- Risk
- Stakeholder
- Urgency
- Geography
- Necessity
The goal is to map a customer journey or story to determine the minimal subset of functionality that can be deployed to provide end-to-end value as soon as possible.
4. Limits and Drawbacks
While advocating strongly for the incremental approach, the document acknowledges potential limits and drawbacks: * Transaction Cost: The overhead costs (documentation, coordination, deployment) associated with frequently releasing small increments. * Marketing Overload: Organisational resistance and inertia from departments (like marketing and sales) accustomed to a traditional, slower release cadence. * Technical Breakthrough: Very rarely, for a massive technological leap, incremental development may not be the optimal approach.
Key Case Studies:
- World Bank: Used vertical slicing to launch small, rapid-results projects (e.g., increasing milk production in 120 days) that generated independent value and provided learning for a 16-year long-term objective.
- Boo.com: Exemplified a disastrous "Big Bang" approach, attempting to launch an ambitious global e-commerce platform all at once. It burned through $135 million because it failed to gain early feedback and revenue by rejecting incremental delivery.
- Netflix: Is cited as a modern business model that uses constant, micro-level incremental delivery, testing and releasing every two weeks to remain innovative with low risk.