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defi nes a product. Assuming that there is variability in terms of product features, your job is
to optimize the use of time and resources to build a feature set that maximizes the value of the
product.
In some business discussions, people are referred to as resources . This is
offensive to some and misleading to others. Here, we refer to resources as just
what it sounds like — sources of supply. A resource can be a supply of labor,
money, or equipment. Resources can be exchanged, either directly (for example,
paying a wage changes money to labor) or indirectly (for example, paying a wage
to build equipment changes money to labor to equipment).
Quality is a feature you can control. You can create a product with more quality or less, depending
on how you allocate the resources of time and money. If you run out of time before completing
adequate testing on a project, you may implicitly decide to cut quality. The project team has
complete control over how much quality to build into a product, as long as quality is considered
a feature that requires resources to complete.
Shipping is another feature that you control. You can build a product and not ship it. You may
not get paid very much in this case, but it is important to realize that it ’ s a feature. Like quality or
other features in the product, shipping takes time and money, so it ’ s important to allocate both. For
instance, if you ’ re working on a minor release of a product and you choose to not ship that release,
you can re - allocate the time planned for shipping activities ( “ release ” build, fi nal regression test,
escrow code, and so on) to other features.
If you have more time or money, you can build more features and quality into a
product. Conversely, if you have less time or money, you can either cut features
or reduce quality.
The geometry of the project management triangle, with constant angles, dictates the fact that you cannot
change just one side of the triangle without adjusting the others. If you increase the features, then you ’ ll
have to increase the time and cost lines. If you increase time, then you ’ ll get more features, but it will cost
more. If you want to decrease cost, you ’ ll spend less time and get fewer features.
FEATURES VERSUS SCOPE
In general, products have features, and projects have scope. Features refer to attributes
of the product — such as functions, style, security, or performance. Scope refers to the
work or effort associated with a project. As constraints on the project management
triangle, they ’ re synonymous. But because Scrum is product focused rather than
project focused, it ’ s common to think in terms of features rather than scope.
What Do You Need to Ship Software?
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