SAFe与延迟成本：一个改进建议 / SAFe & Cost of Delay：a suggested improvement

Author: Black Swan Farming

翻译/Translated by: 金毅 (Lucy Jin)

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译者按：Don Reinertsen在2009年的经典著作《The Principles of Product Development Flow》中说了一句警言：

If you only quantify one thing, quantify the Cost of Delay.

已经过去了9年，有关如何量化延迟成本Cost of Delay (下面简写为CoD) 仍然是一个“高深莫测”的问题！大规模敏捷框架SAFe提供了一个计算CoD的公式，包含三个参数。而本文作者显然也是这个领域的研究者，他质疑SAFe的CoD计算方法，并提供了一个改进建议。我觉得有一定道理，于是翻译出来与大家分享。

由此文我也自省到，当下国人学习SAFe的理论和案例时，也应该怀有批判性思维，更应该练习创造性思维，为拿出更合理的解决方案而努力。

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I have previously shared my view on the way SAFe teaches Cost of Delay. It’s possible that the feedback came in too large a batch, so maybe I can break it down and suggest some incremental improvements. I’ll start with the part I struggle with the most and see if we can make it just a little bit better…

我以前和大家分享过我对SAFe所教授的延迟成本的看法。可能反馈量太大了，也许我可以把它分解一下，并提出一些渐进的改进建议。我先从最困难的部分开始，看看能否让它稍微好一点…

The SAFe “Cost of Delay” formula today

Here is SAFe’s formula for Cost of Delay, as it is today on the website:

Cost of Delay = User-Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction and/or Opportunity Enablement

目前SAFe的“延迟成本”计算公式

下面是目前SAFe网站上计算延迟成本的公式：

延迟成本 = 用户商业价值 + 时间临界性 + 风险降低及/或机会开启

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One of my main challenges with this definition is that it adds ‘Time Criticality” to the other two parameters. To see why this doesn’t make sense, consider an option for which the “User-Business Value” = 0 and “Risk Reduction and/or Opportunity Enablement” = 0 but for which “Time Criticality” = 21.

In this case, SAFe is suggesting that

Cost of Delay = 0 + 0 + 21 = 21

This result clearly shows that there is a problem with the formula. If an option has zero value, then it shouldn’t matter how time critical it is, the Cost of Delay should be zero.

我对这个定义的一个主要挑战是，它增加了对其他两个参数的“时间临界性”。为什么这个没有意义呢，来考虑一种选项：“用户商业价值”为0，且“风险降低及/或机会开启“为0，但这个“时间临界性”等于 21。

在这种情况下，SAFe建议的延迟成本为

延迟成本 = 0 + 0 + 21 = 21

这个结果显然表明公式有问题。如果一个选项的价值为0，那么不管时间有多么紧迫，延迟成本都应该为0。

It has since been explained to me that SAFe practitioners do indeed recognise this as a problem. To cater for this, there is some sort of “strategy filter” which weeds out these sort of nonsense results. In effect, they put a lower bound of 1 on each of the components.

The need for this filter highlights that the SAFe formula poorly reflects the underlying principles of Cost of Delay. The filter doesn’t fix the problem though, it merely hides the most obviously flawed results.

What follows is a proposal for making a small, simple and hopefully as painless an improvement as I can think of. Assuming we can only use the same three qualitative inputs, how might we improve this?

从那时起，我就知道，SAFe从业人员确实意识到了这是个问题。为了迎合这一点，有一种“战略过滤器”排除了这一类荒谬的结果。实际上，它们将每个参数的下限设为1。

需要这个过滤器就是强调了SAFe公式不能很好地反映延迟成本的基本原则。但是这个过滤器并不能解决这个问题，它只是隐藏了最明显的缺陷值而已。

下面是一个建议，这是我能想到的一个小小的, 简单的, 并希望是个无痛的改进。假设我们只能使用相同的三个定性输入，我们如何改进这个公式呢？

Value

The current SAFe formula has two terms which are both about Value (“User-Business Value”, and “Risk Reduction/Opportunity Enablement”. Depending on the sub-type, these map perfectly well to the four buckets of value that I normally use, which (when they are all denominated in the same scale or currency) we can combine into total Value like this:

Value = Increase Revenue + Protect Revenue + Reduce Cost + Avoid Cost

In the same way, we can continue to add UBV and RROE together, like so:

Value = User or Business Value + Risk Reduction and/or Opportunity Enablement

Quick sanity check: either one of these can be zero, but if both are zero, then value (and subsequently, Cost of Delay) should also be zero. So far, so good – and no change yet, so this should be easy to swallow.

价值

目前SAFe的计算公式包括价值相关的两个方面（“用户商业价值”，和“风险降低/机会开启”。）根据子类型，这些都很好地映射到了我通常使用的四桶值（当它们都以相同的刻度或货币计价时），我们可以组合成这样的总价值：

价值 = 增加收入 + 保护收入 + 降低成本 + 避免成本

以同样的方式，我们可以继续把SAFe的UBV和RROE加在一起，像这样：

价值 = 用户商业价值 + 风险降低及/或机会开启

快速健康检查：任何一个参数都可以为零，但是如果两个都为零，那么价值（也就是延迟成本）就应该是0。到目前为止，一切都好，而且还没有改变什么，所以这应该很容易被接受。

Combining with Urgency

The main issue lies in how we treat the parameter that SAFe calls “Time Criticality”. I usually call this “Urgency” and ask people to consider which of the four most common Urgency Profiles that a value proposition can have. This helps them do a better job of estimating what the impact of time is on the outcome you’re interested in. The result is Cost of Delay, for which the units are $/week or £/month.

As we’ve already said though, we cannot simply add “Time Criticality” to the other two value terms. Urgency is orthogonal to Value. I’ve also tried to make the case previously that urgency alone is not enough, you need both. Urgency is the part that turns a feature for which the value is estimated to be worth, say, $2m into a feature for which the Cost of Delay is $10,000/week. The same feature with a different urgency could have a Cost of Delay of $20,000/week, or as low as $0/week.  For those allergic to numbers, I already proposed a simplified qualitative Urgency. In this simplified model I proposed that Urgency is, in effect, multiplied by Value to get Cost of Delay.

Cost of Delay = Value x Urgency

Applying the same underlying principles to the SAFe formula give us:

Cost of Delay = (User or Business Value + Risk Reduction and/or Opportunity Enablement) x (Time Criticality)

结合时间紧迫性

主要问题在于我们如何对待SAFe称为“时间临界性”的参数。我通常称之为“紧迫性”，并要求人们考虑他们的价值判断属于最常见的四种紧急程度中的哪一种。这有助于他们更好地估计时间对你感兴趣的结果有什么影响。其结果就是延迟成本，单位为$/每周或者£/月。

正如我们已经说过的，我们不能简单地将“时间临界性”添加到其他两个价值术语上面。紧迫性与价值是正交的。我以前也试图说明，单凭紧迫性是不足以计算延迟成本的，二者都需要。紧迫性是估计特性的价值的一部分，比如一个特性为200万美元，它的延迟成本为1万美元/周。同一个特性在不同的紧急情况下可能延误成本变成2万美元/周，或者变成每星期0美元。对于那些对数字过敏的人，我已经提出了一个简化的定性的紧迫性。在这个简化模型中, 我提出了以紧迫性乘以价值得到延迟成本。

延迟成本 = 价值 x 紧迫性

将同样的基本原则应用到SAFe公式中可以得到：

延迟成本 = (用户商业价值 + 风险降低及/或机会开启) x (时间临界性)

If you have read this post about Qualitative Cost of Delay you should be able to see how these two align. In this case, you’re adding together two terms (U-BV and RR/OE) as Value on the vertical axis, with “Time Criticality” in place of Urgency on the horizontal axis.

如果您已经阅读了关于 定性分析延迟成本的文章，您应该能够看到这两种参数如何对齐。在这种情况下，SAFe的两个参数之和 (用户商业价值和风险降低/机会开启) 作为纵轴上的价值，以“时间临界性”替代紧迫性放在横轴。

This approach also means that practitioners who aren’t yet ready to try quantifying Cost of Delay can use a simple matrix for visualising Value x Urgency as above. Feel free to use SAFe terminology, or whatever words resonate and make sense in your context. It’s the meaning that matters.

Making this simple change would immediately put SAFe in a better position than the more common Value over Effort approach to prioritisation, which fails to account for urgency.

这种方法也意味着，那些还没有准备好尝试量化延迟成本的从业者们，可以用一个简单的矩阵可视化价值x紧迫感，如上所示。请随意使用SAFe术语，或任何能引起共鸣的词语，并使其在上下文中有意义。重点在于它的含义。

这个简单的变化会立即把SAFe公式放在一个更好的位置上，比更常见的价值高于工作量，却没有考虑到紧迫性的方法更适于排优先级。

参考文献：

1. SAFe WSJF：http://www.scaledagileframework.com/wsjf/

2. 理解价值：http://blackswanfarming.com/understanding-value/

3. 紧迫性属性：http://blackswanfarming.com/urgency-profiles/

4. 定性分析延迟成本：http://blackswanfarming.com/qualitative-cost-delay/