Release value often

Throughout this article we have focused on value and unlocking the pace required to deliver it at regular intervals. We often witness clients aligning to agile frameworks such as Scrum, SAFe, LeSS and adopting the iterative delivery methodologies these espouse. However, without a focus on regular value release, it’s easy to fall into the trap of breaking a big problem into manageable chunks with all the value delivered as a Big Bang when these components are combined. Traditional architecture techniques such as Service Orientated Architecture and Object Orientation drive a mindset of modularising functionality and delivering reusable building blocks. Whilst these techniques are still relevant, they encourage breaking big problems into a series of smaller problems, with each individual component not delivering measurable value until they are integrated together. To release value regularly this mindset needs to shift. Taking incremental slices of the end-to-end solution to deliver workable solutions with each release, progressively adds more functionality or improves functionality in response to user feedback.