Thursday, August 28, 2014

Can we apply the 80-20 rule to find out the Minimal Marketable Feature?

Cam we apply the 80-20 rule ( "for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes" ) to find out the Minimal Marketable Feature (MMF)?

In my personal experience over bloated requirements as the norm. So I have the practice (even in my personal life) to analyze the root cause of problems to try to resolve as much as I can with the minimum possible effort. The 80-20 rule becomes my target and unless someone before me actually applied it I can say that in most cases at least I can present an option. Whether that is accepted or not depends on many other factors which I rather not discuss here.

Why this rule is useful in Software development is a well known subject. But making the whole team aware of it comes in handy when there is clear determination to be occupied 100% of the tine in producing value. If we can cut down to 20% the apparently needed requirements our productivity would literally skyrocket. Of course the earlier you do this analysis the better but be prepared because perhaps you, the software engineer will teach a lesson to everybody above when you demonstrate that what was asked is way more than what is needed to resolve the real need of the stakeholder.

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