How to estimate and prioritize

This is an excerpt from the last chapter of my Building Data Products Book. At this point we've completed a number of iterations building up to a solid first pass at a sales analytics system. Borrowing from SAFe (don't @ me. I've also got plenty to say!) the next step is to take a break, continue to refactor, and think about what comes next. This is a good time to introduce some suggestions on how to prioritize what to work on when you have many possibilities. 

​SAFe (and many others) recommend the Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) method described on the blackswanfarming.com website as Cost of Delay. Good luck getting a group of people with their own priorities to agree on using actual dollar values to define value! You need to ease them into it by making the people who can assess the business value and urgency story point them, just like they made the developers use story points to determine the value of their work. (/snark)

Read More