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Month: December 2017

Books I read in 2017

In this post, I’m going to share some of the books I read this year. In the nonfiction realm, some of them are very much on point for software developers. Others are just good books that let you know what’s going on in the world.

In fiction, I’m drawn to technology-driven Sci-Fi. I found some great reads this year. I also listed some books at the bottom of this post that weren’t that good. I think it’s just as important to tell you about the good books as the not so good books.

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Cost of delay: how to calculate quantitative cost of delay and CD3

In my last post, I introduced you to qualitative cost of delay and CD3. I argued that rational teams should order their backlog for maximum economic benefit and that you can use cost of delay divided by duration (CD3) to do that. Because software developers aren’t accountants, I used the easier to understand qualitative cost of delay and CD3 in my examples. But in this post I’m going to discuss at the advantages of switching to quantitative cost of delay.

I know this stuff isn’t as interesting as reading about the latest advances in AI or your favorite framework. But trust me when I say that learning to order your backlog by quantitative CD3 will help you take your effectiveness to the next level.

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Cost of delay: prioritize your product backlog by CD3

Ordering your backlog for maximum economic benefit is a hard problem. The average team is being pulled in several directions at once. New features requests, technical debt, existing defects, non-functional requirements, security, risk mitigation, resource shortages, and more are all competing for your team’s attention. So, how does a rational team decide what to work on? In this post, I’m going to show you how to prioritize your product backlog by CD3, which is cost of delay divided by duration.

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