Skip to content
Gallery
10 Feature Prioritization Methods
Prioritization for All
Prioritization Tool Kit
About me
Share
Explore
Prioritization Tool Kit

icon picker
Method 9: Cost of Delay

Prioritize your features based on the cost of not having it available to users
Modified from
Feature Prioritization Toolkit
⁠
, by
Malcolm Bastien
⁠
- Agile Coach at Agile by Design.
⁠
Change: Cost of delay, Unit of Time, and Duration of Effort
See results auto-ordered in: CD3 Score
Answer key questions about your features to surface assumptions and determine their cost of delay and duration. Among all your features, the unit of time should be consistent, so choose either "week" or "month" and stick with that value.
WHAT IS THE IDEA/PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY?
WHAT TYPE OF BENEFIT DOES IT PROVIDE? (Increase revenue, Protect revenue, Reduce costs, Avoid costs)
HOW WILL IT GENERATE THIS BENEFIT?
WHAT ARE ANY ASSUMPTIONS THAT NEED TO BE TESTED?
Cost of Delaying Features
Request Name
Cost of delay
Unit of Time
Duration of Effort
CD3 Score
1
F5: Item comments
$5,000
Week (7 days)
14 days
357.1
2
F4: Security upgrade
$1,500
Week (7 days)
14 days
107.1
3
F3: Video calls
$500
Week (7 days)
5 days
100.0
4
F2: Import functionality
$1,000
Week (7 days)
20 days
50.0
5
F7: Localization of mobile app
$500
Week (7 days)
24 days
20.8
6
F1: New billing page
$500
Week (7 days)
60 days
8.3
7
BNS-684: Notification panel redesign
$100
Week (7 days)
14 days
7.1
8
F8: Multi-location Management
​
Week (7 days)
​
​
There are no rows in this table
⁠

Extra - Useful Questions

For better understanding and qualifing your features, tro to answer those questions for each feature.
Definition - What is the idea/problem/opportunity?
Benefit Type - What type of benefit does it provide?
Process - How will it generate this benefit?
Assumptions - What are any assumptions that need to be tested?
Extra - Useful Questions about Features
Request Name
Definition
Benefit Type
Process
Assumptions
1
F1: New billing page
​
​
​
​
2
F2: Import functionality
​
​
​
​
3
F3: Video calls
​
​
​
​
4
F4: Security upgrade
​
​
​
​
5
F5: Item comments
​
​
​
​
6
BNS-684: Notification panel redesign
​
​
​
​
7
F7: Localization of mobile app
​
​
​
​
8
F8: Multi-location Management
​
​
​
​
There are no rows in this table
⁠

Four Types of Values

Increase revenue
This type of revenue is often related to attracting new customers, or more revenue from existing customers through the development of new products, services, or entering new markets.
Protect revenue
This type of value is to lengthen the life-cycle of current revenue streams, and avoiding current revenue streams from falling. Investment here does not generate new revenue, it protects the revenue we already have.
Reduce costs
This type of value looks to reduce any costs we are currently incurring.
Avoid costs
This type of value captures the costs we could ensure in the future and putting measures in place to avoid them. The easiest example of this is features that need to be completed by some date in order to avoid regulatory fines.
"Cost of delay" + "per (unit of time)"
This figure represents how much value is lost per unit of time by not having a feature in the market.
For the results to be valid, the unit of time measure should all be consistent and the cost of delay normalized to that time frame. For example, all values in the column should be "7 days" or "30 days".

About CD3 Score

CD3 is an abbreviation of "Cost of Delay Divided by Duration"
⁠
⁠
⁠
When we have a collection of potential feature and their CD3 scores, the CD3 score tells us know which option should be delivered first. It does this by considering which feature incurs the largest cost of delay (the cost we incur as long as the feature is not available) compared to how quickly it could be delivered.

About Cost of Delay

The first thing you may have noticed is that entering data for Cost of Delay asked a lot more questions about your features. The reason for this is that a lot of discussions around value include assumptions. The questions help individuals and groups come to a clearer common understand of a feature, and a better understanding of the value of doing it.
Another change is switching from the looking at the value a feature provides, and instead the value that is lost by not having a feature.
This more advanced technique is not to be used in all situations. If you can make a good enough prioritization decision without discovering the cost of delay and CD3 score for every feature, you should do it. Use cost of delay between a small set of items, or when the stakes are high, to get very precise guidance on sequencing features.

Cost of Delay & CD3 Links

⁠
https://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of-delay-divided-by-duration/
⁠
⁠
⁠
https://blackswanfarming.com/understanding-value/
⁠
⁠

⁠

Next up:

⁠
Method 10: Urgency Codes
⁠
⁠


Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.