Value-Driven Delivery and Prioritisation
This domain tests how value is defined, sliced, ordered, and delivered, especially when corporate stakeholders compete for capacity. Expect cost of delay, WSJF, MoSCoW, Kano, MVP, story slicing, and the difference between output and outcome.
Core rules
- Value is an outcome for a customer or the business, not a count of features or story points.
- Order the backlog by economic value and risk. Cost of delay divided by job size, known as WSJF, is useful when delay costs differ.
- Make value explicit: revenue, cost avoidance, risk reduction, compliance obligation, or customer retention. If you cannot explain the value, you cannot prioritise it defensibly.
- Slice work to deliver value early. An MVP is the smallest thing that produces learning or revenue, not a half-built product.
- Compliance and risk work can carry value; do not treat it as invisible overhead.
Worked example
Three backlog items: A has cost of delay 100 per week and job size 5; B has cost of delay 60 and size 3; C has cost of delay 200 and size 20. WSJF scores are A=20, B=20, C=10. A and B tie; the team breaks the tie by risk reduction and dependencies. C looks urgent because its total delay cost is high, but its size makes it a poor first choice. The reasoning matters more than the arithmetic: relative delay cost and size drive the order.
Traps
Prioritising by the loudest stakeholder; treating story points as business value; using MoSCoW as a label without a trade-off conversation; ignoring cost of delay; building a big-bang MVP; letting compliance work pile up until release.