Is WSJF "better" than traditional ROI calculations for Applications?

I love road trips, and i like analogy.  

The Premise: Two couples are planning a road trip.

The "Perfection" group: This group spends a year planning a single, perfect itinerary. They book every hotel, museum, and restaurant reservation months in advance. They have a massive, inflexible budget and a 50-page binder and a fixed budget line item for everything. If a restaurant is closed or a friend gets sick, the entire plan and budget is at risk. It's an all or nothing roadtrip. Everyone's holding their breath and each part of the plan feels risky.

The "Flow" Group: This group has a general idea of their destination (Philadelphia). They decide to drive for a few hours (Planning interval) and then check in with each other (PI Event). "Where do we want to go next?" they ask (Retrospective, Feedback). They agree to stop at the most interesting thing that's coming up soon (Weighted Shortest Job First). They choose what needs upfront planning, such as booking an event outing but not everything. They have a modest amount of cash on hand (their lean budget) and use apps like Airbnb or Yelp to find local spots (leverage suppliers). They let the person in the passenger seat make decisions on what music to play or where to eat next (empower local decision making). All of this feels balanced, and the group is in flow with flexibility.

I signed the Agile Manifesto in 2012. Since then I have selectively applied various lean, and agile principles, tools and techniques to software development processes. One key question that often comes up is "How do you measure ROI for applications" - this is a key question often overlooked. However, the economic benefits are an essential driver for investment decisions in technology

I have trained and certified in SAFe. It is essential for a team embarking on SAFe go through training across all levels in the organization. Epics and participated in prioritization of enablers and functional epics across a portfolio with leadership teams. The goal is to maximize economic benefit.  A pre-requisite to that is the way in which prioritization is done and what it's measured against.

Traditional Return on Investments consider "green or white dollars", where as SAFe prioritized "flow". WSFJ isn't an ROI methodology however I argue it is apt for many situations in IT investment choices.

Taking an Economic View in Practice

- Deliver Early and Often: This is valuable to ensure flow

- Operate within Lean Budget: Fund teams, this is akin to spending mostly "white dollars" - the staff.

- Understand Econonic Tradeoffs for Solutions: This is where a common consensus on Value needs to be defined first.

- Leverage Suppliers: Buy versus Build can significantly increase speed to market as well as ROI

- Sequence Jobs for Maximum Benefit: Weighted Shortest Job First is the way to sequence almost anything at any scale

- Empower Local Decision Making - ensure that the value determination is local to a group - perhaps product management team, and the duration is local to the development team estimation. 

Cost of Delay is an interesting way of determining Value and it's essential to bring everyone on board to the determination of Value. It's a post-mortem view of what happens if we don't so this? Thanks to Donald Reinertsen CoD is a priority.

CoD = BV+TC+RR | OE

BV is Business Value e.g. reduction in operating costs, or increase in revenue

TC is Time Criticality - e.g. regulations, reputational harm

RR is Risk Reduction e.g. Security risk via SSO

Opportunity Enablement e.g. Enabler epics

CoD / Size is used in SAFe. 

"Those who do the work size the work" Steve Adolph has a good video on his.

Basically, WSJF delivers the low hanging fruit without impact to the most important things business wants by much. You get some value really quickly, versus nothing for a very long time.

Conclusion

ROI calculations almost always depend on the agreed-upon "Value" score. This is where almost all 'returns' on application value falter. This is a highly subjective, non-scientific area and there is no standard methodology that has been universally and easiliy adopted. The value is contextual and each leadership team must define what and how they can generally align on value by assigning metrics to it. 

Cost of Delay is a great way to define Value for software and technology delivery for applications. 

Event Driven Architecture Standardization for Efficiency and Scale

This is a rehash of my blog post on "Debate Over Domain-Agnostic Connections"  back in March 2010 when I pushed for event driven architecture as a technologist and got push back from the development team who were doing simple point-to-point integration. I have rewritten the post using a prompt that recasts into a structured output that addresses business fit as well as technical fit.

Standardized Event-Driven Architecture for Business Agility

Recommendation to use Domain-Agnostic Connection Factories for Service Integration Bus is crucial for achieving a unified, scalable, and resilient enterprise-wide integration platform. This decision will enable a foundational Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) that directly supports our goals of faster time-to-market and improved system resilience.

Supporting Rationale

Enhancing Business Agility & Resilience

This approach unifies our messaging framework, enabling seamless interoperability across diverse business domains. It mitigates the risk of fragmented integration silos that can impede cross-departmental data flow and innovation.

By abstracting the underlying messaging resources, we can more easily integrate new business units or third-party services without extensive code changes, directly accelerating our ability to respond to market demands.

Operational & Technical Rationale: Standardizing for Efficiency and Scale

Reduced Complexity

Using a single connection factory streamlines development, as engineers no longer need to manage separate code paths for different messaging types (e.g., Topics vs. Queues). This reduces boilerplate code and cognitive load, leading to fewer errors and faster feature delivery.

Improved Scalability & Maintainability

The architecture provides a consistent, standardized pattern that is easier to document, test, and automate. As we scale our microservices and integration points, this consistency will be vital for operational efficiency and platform stability.

Proof Points & Details

Executive Proof Point

 The Proof of Concept (POC) demonstrated a 25% reduction in integration development time for a new service, validating the efficiency gains. Furthermore, a single, documented approach minimizes training overhead for new teams and reduces long-term operational costs.

Practitioner Details

The design uses the JMS 2.0+ standard ConnectionFactory interface, which is the current industry best practice. This pattern allows for code to be written once and deployed to multiple messaging endpoints, such as TopicConnection for broadcast events and QueueConnection for point-to-point transactions. This is not about making development harder; it’s about freeing developers from low-level plumbing so they can focus on business logic.

Analogy

Think of a universal remote control. Instead of needing a different remote for your TV, sound system, and streaming device, one remote can control them all. The ConnectionFactory is our universal remote for enterprise messaging—it simplifies the user experience without sacrificing functionality.

Conclusion & Next Steps

This architectural decision ensures our integration platform is built for the future, not just the current project. It will lead to:

Business Outcome

Improved system resilience and faster time-to-market for new services.

Technical Outcome

A standardized, scalable framework that reduces technical debt and improves maintainability.

The path forward is clear. We will update the project wiki with detailed technical examples and a reference implementation. I will continue to work directly with team leads to ensure a smooth transition and address any further questions, ensuring we maintain a collaborative approach as we move forward.

Role of Senior Architects

A key strategy is delegation. This works well if you are comfortable with it.

I espouse a personal philosophy that says if a decision can reasonably be made by someone with a more narrow scope of responsibility, defer the decision to that person or group.

Trust, but verify. Review. Review. Review. Ask open ended questions and have an open channel of communicating early ‘red flags’.

And then hold the group accountable to see through the results of the decision into a tangible deliverable.

Learning to let Employees Lead

I was give this book to read by my manager several years ago, and since then I have read a lot of books on team leadership etc. This book was one of the simpler reads.

To summarize this book, the authors take an approach that is akin to the live and learn approach, learn by your mistakes approach, and a generalize by personal experience approach. I wrote in 2006: Belasco and Stayer have written an oddly titled best-selling book in first person based on these principles of leadership. Flight of the buffalo (FOTB ) is a joint venture that dives head first into experiences of running companies, heuristics of leadership, visual analogies, gut feel, earthly common sense and best practices of "leadership". The oddity of the title is explained early in the book.

The book begins with the authors' journeys into leadership and various related concepts & ideas. Amongst others ideas like intellectual capitalism, leadership vision, focus, direction, obstacles (removing them), developing ownership in employees, self-directed action & learning to be the leader (lead goose) are discussed. Every chapter is littered with short stories and a moral. There is an Aesop's Fables like feel to the book. Real-life examples are touching and real, however, if you have read Northouse's LTP previously, you can draw parallels to Belasco and Stayer's experiences. Specific leadership theories presented in LTP can easily experience the wise words the authors present. The book is enjoyable, and almost actionable. Some of the advice is basically common sense best practices in action. The writing style is patterned by "try,try again until you succeed, or decide to do things differently".

The authors introduce interesting words and concepts. I liked the word authors invented to mean the inverse of leadership - "status-quo-ship". Another favorite is the concept of "lead goose" in the "intellectual capitalism era". Good advice is provided on every page of the book, obvious common sense is prescribed often. For example, "Leaders proact, not react" is treated as a chapter, the basic premise is that leaders should prevent problems rather than solve problems. Basic management tenets are also provided for the uninitiated, Deliverable (What will be delivered ?), Measurement (How will we know it is done ?), Date (When will it be done ?), Person Responsible (Who will do it ?). The authors recommend that every employee do a process analysis by asking "what can i stop doing?" - remove obstacles. Expectation setting on staff, customers and oneself is discussed. Henry Kissinger is cited as asking "Is this your best work?". The author(s) push for excellence through action.

I found the authors doing a good job in the area of potential and reaching it. What's the difference between those who reach their potential and those who don't ? Those who do, bring a discipline with them to every task they face. They are willing continuously to challenge themselves. They keep learning how to get better because they do not accept falling short of their potential.

Please support this blog by viewing and purchasing the book from Amazon:

This book can become suddenly interesting and intensely revealing if you decide to read Northouse's LTP first. It is the perfect anti-dote to analysis by knowledge (knowing too much, but acting too little).

Alignment, Motivation, Change & Commitment

If you have a large new strategic initiative, how do you get buy-in, commitment, alignment, motivation and change management communicated. According to research led by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great”. You don’t.

In a large company like Kroger, the Level 5 CEO did not spend too much time to align 50,000 employees to the new strategy.
Level 5 leaders simply don’t worry about that upfront, rather they depend on turning, what Collins calls the “Flywheel”: let the flywheel do the ‘talking’. Executing and then repeating success of a strategy and communicating that allows people to extrapolate – people want to be part of a winning team.
Alignment, motivation, change and commitment takes care of itself. In my professional life, I have seen that happen – your strategy becomes everyone’s strategy! Everyone takes ownership and enjoy a shared success. It is possible, I have been part of it and recognize the ‘chemistry’.

7 Habits of Ineffective People–an inverse corollary

Once of my favorite non-fiction books is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. Sometimes it’s helpful to apply an inverse angle to see if it sticks. And it’s fun.

So here’s my inverse corollary:
#1. Procrastinate until it’s urgent & important.
#2. Plan as you go
#3. Let tasks to automatically prioritize themselves
#4. Try to win at all costs
#5. Ensure others understand what you’re saying first
#6. Work alone and be a hero
#7. Learn just-in-time and on the spur
Of course this is not what’s in the book – it’s pretty much a contrast of it. Often times we read books/articles that list what one must do, and to make this post a bit more interesting & fun it tells you what not to do. Additionally It may be more instructive to learn from other’s experiences and try to avoid pitfalls and bad habits.
 

A Culture of Discipline

Those who try to manage change, motivate employees and work to create alignment are negatively correlated with companies that move from good to great. To get a company to top gear – a culture of discipline is critical.

Think about it – a CULTURE of DISCIPLINE. This means that everyone does what they are supposed to without stepping on toes, do what they do best and are diligent about the task at hand. No one has to remind them and they produce excellence for the team. And then you get a team of teams, a culture that pervades the organization. This is what is required for an organization that transforms itself.

I am re-reading this book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. It’s a classic. I really like books that dwell on evidence and then synthesize that into evidence-based recommendations. I have taken a few of those recommendations and internalized them into traits, I present a few in “Traffic Signals” here.

So here are a few traits of Great companies -

Red: Negative Correlation (with Good to Great)

Green: Positive Correlation

Black: No difference.

The culture is an enabler to excellence. It is the HOW.

The 3 circles need to intersect to understand the WHAT.

The hedgehog concept revolves around , in my mind 3 questions

Do you love what you’re doing?

Do you excel at what you’re doing?

Does it pay ?

If the answer is true – the you’re excelling and if its true for the organization – it is poised to be great in the future.

A good pre-read is 7 Habits…because it can link the individual habits of successful individuals to the culture required for greatness in an organization.

Building a Stronger Team that YOU work in

Anyone who has worked in a team knows that there is no simple answer for team success. Each employee/team-member offers a unique perspective and comes from a unique background (typically). This is even true in homogeneous teams, or centers of excellence. Building and sustaining team morale can be difficult especially in homogenous teams because direct comparisons can be drawn very quickly.

I recently read a general article, http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-5-qualities-of-remarkable-bosses.html , this outlines a list of things bosses should do to build and sustain remarkable teams. I could not find myself agreeing more.

 

1. Develop every employee.

2. Deal with problems immediately.

3. Rescue your worst employee.

4. Serve others, not yourself.

5. Always remember where you came from.

The list above outlines how to be a good boss. However if you are team member these rules apply as well.

In order to help continue to build a stronger team, there may be a few more that need to be added to the list.

6. Build Trust: this is the nucleus of the team. Without a core sense of trust in one another, the team can breakdown into clusters and tuples.

7. Enable & even enforce team transparency: In order to build trust, establishing a level playing field of opportunities within the team. “The right person on the right seat in the bus” – Collins.

8. Ensure consistent and equal visibility: In an idea economy  it is very important to ensure that the right contributors are cited and given the opportunity to present. 

9. Enable and enforce core value from the ground-up: developing a core values set –a set of team values/principles and operational rules is very critical.

10. Be a follower: over time every team member must learn and demonstrate behaviors of a good follower.

As a leadership team member, each member must play a dual role sometimes – leader and follower. There is so much spotlight on being a good leader today, that people don’t have the skills anymore of being a good follower. Oftentimes a good leader is also a good follower.

6 Traits of an Impoverished Leader

Impoverished Leadership Style

1. Uninvolved: Is not involved with the effort at hand
2. Unmotivated: Does not motivate and is not moved by the effort
3. Indifferent: Does not care about the outcomes or your efforts
4. Noncommittal: Does not provide straight answers and is not ready to support the effort.
5. Resigned: Is not positive about the effort and is basically non caring.
6. Apathetic: No emotion, no enthusiasm.

Have you worked for a manager in your career that you thought was disconnected and unmotivated? The LeaderShip Grid (developed by Ohio State University) defines what they call the "Impoverished Leadership Style". Rest assured - this is a common leadership patter in dysfunctional organizations.

How to make people like you in 90 seconds or less.

Introduction
An intriguing title for a book! This small book (less than 200 pages) is written by Nicholas Boothman. It covers a pretty broad range of topics. From my perspective, the book did a decent job of bringing body language, communication skills, and behavior together. It covers a lot of ground with everyday examples. One of the acronyms that is fascinating is KFC. Know what you want, Find out what you are getting, Change what you do until you get what you want. The key is the "K" know what you want. Once you know what you want, you can direct your attitude, synchronize appropriately, communicate effectively by using the preferred senses.

Attitude
The book focuses on achieving rapport when it does not come naturally. Boothman calls his technique "Rapport by Design". In this technique, you the reader, will assume the characteristics of the person you are engaged with temporarily,"The key to establish rapport with strangers is to become like them". He describes various ways of doing that, especially through body language and the right attitude. The author describes to general types of attitudes. A "Really Useful Attitude" and a "Really Useless Attitude".

Really Useful Attitude	Really Useless Attitude
Warm Enthusiastic Confident Supportive Relaxed Obliging Curious Resourceful Comfortable Helpful Engaging Laid back Patient Welcoming Cheery Interested	Angry Sarcastic Impatient Bored Disrespectful Conceited Pessimistic Anxious Rude suspicious Vengeful Afraid Self-conscious Mocking Embarrassed Dutiful

The whole idea to list the useful and useless attitudes is to get a picture of what is needed and what must be avoided. Attitude is the core of interpersonal skill.

Synchronization

There is significant talk about body language and synchronization at the subliminal level. Boothman states "When you meet someone new, immediately point your heart warmly at that person's heart. ". Such gestures, he claims are universal and cross-cultural. He adds, "There is magic in this.". He explicitly calls out on closed body language and gives examples of what not to do.
He cites Albert Mehrabian, professor at UCLA, who has studied communication in detail. His studies suggest that 55% of what we respond to takes place visually; 38% of what we respond to is the sound; and 7% is the content. The author suggests that we synchronize our attitudes,body language (gestures, posture, gesticulations, movement, tilts, nods, expressions, breathing and rhythms), and voice (tone, volume, speed, pitch, rhythm, words).


Communication
Boothman declares two types of communication methods, one that opens up the conversation (through open-ended questions) and the other, that closes the conversation (questions that ask for a yes/no response). The author encourages questions that begin with "who, what, when, why, where, how" compared to "did you, are you , have you".
A "location/occasion" conversation methodology is recommended to break the ice. It is even better to use sensory specific words like "See, Tell, Feel" in a conversation. The author offers situational advice for regular day-to-day scenarios. The strongest point the author makes about communication is that most people do not know what they want out of a communication. It is of paramount importance that you know what you want before you open your mouth. If you do not want anything, make sure the other person knows and ensure that you are not wasting any time theirs or yours.
Boothman explains nicely the difference between "active" listening and "parrot phrasing" by providing excellent examples. All facets of communication are touched upon, at one point in the book Boothman explains how to receive compliments and advises not to flatter, "cheap flattery, tired cliches, and patronizing remarks reek of insincerity & can be insulting".

Senses
What makes this book different from other books is how Boothman classifies people by their preferred senses. He claims that there are three type of people: Visuals (55%), Auditories(15%) & Kinesthetics (30%). The author claims that it is more effective to select words in a conversation depending on which type of person you are talking with. The book offers techniques to determine the type of person. There is a good description of the type of eye-movement to expect when a person is visualizing, re-hearing, or re-feeling to retrieve information. A self-test is also offered in the form a questionnaire that determines your favorite sense. From a communication perspective, Boothman says to use metaphors, he claims that it appeals to all types because metaphors exercise all senses.


Conclusion
This book concludes easily by bringing all the four major components together. It ends with food for thought. The author urges his readers to get their imagination under control and install some Really Useful Assumptions. Assume rapport and trust, assume likability, assume synchronicity, assume forgiveness, assume impact, assume positivity and above all assume disposition to connectivity. He reminds us that when greeting someone new use this metaphor: Open-Eye-Bean-"Hi!"-Lean.