roi for engineers

ROI for Engineers

ROI = Benefits - Costs


Revenue Drivers


Revenue Sinks


Incremental Gain (or Loss)

Recipe for SuccessExpanded Revenue

+

Squeezed Costs

=

More Incremental Income

ResponsibilitiesProduct Management, Sales &

Marketing

have greatest impact on

Revenue Drivers

ResponsibilitiesEngineering, Program

Management & QA

have greatest impact on

Revenue Sinks

Responsibilities

The greatest product idea in the world can be a financial failure

due to sloppy engineering

Usual ROI Failure Lower than expected Revenue

Higher than expected Support Cost

Late project, deferred debt

Squeezing CostsDev Cost Estimate well, manage risks, deliver cleanly, be done, Done, DONE.

Support Costs Don’t release crap code, customers will call, that costs money.

Upset Customers Annoy a customer, they buy from someone else next time.

Escalations If the front line support can’t solve it, the engineers get pulled in.

Tech Debt Deferred engineering always efforts come back to haunt.

Squeezing Costs

How??

Have Conscious

Awarenessat theStart

Engineers != Business People

Hint: Don’t Focus on Numbers

Increase Decrease

Sales Support Good Will Dev Cost Support Upset Cust Escalations Tech Debt

Decrease Increase

Hint: Don’t Focus on Numbers ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Increase Decrease

Sales Support Good Will Dev Cost Support Upset Cust Escalations Tech Debt

Decrease Increase

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

✓ = Good ✘ = BadConsciously look to maximise ✓ and minimize ✘

More above than below

Some Common Bad Patterns✓

Increase Decrease

Sales Support Good Will

Dev Cost Support Upset

CustEscalatio

nsTech Debt

Decrease Increase

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

✓

Increase Decrease



CustEscalatio

nsTech Debt

Decrease Increase

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

Poor quality delivery with bugs visible to customer and lots of support issues being escalated to engineering.

Late project, lower quality output, deferring work that should be done to later.

Some Patterns to Strive for✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Increase Decrease



CustEscalatio

nsTech Debt

Decrease Increase

✘

✓ ✓ ✓

Increase Decrease



CustEscalatio

nsTech Debt

Decrease Increase

✘

Reduce support churn and escalations into engineering.

Retiring tech debt, increase in quality, less engineering churn.

Application

Timebox: Seconds to consider Consider & Discuss

Why Use It?

Creates a Common Language and Gets

People Thinking

Will this feature increase support calls?

Does this make the customer happy?

What can I do to allow the customer or support team to self serve?

Obscure Images References

Hydrogen and Maths, the common language giving Directions To Earth on the Voyager Spacecraft

Swiss Railway Clock, used by Apple without permission for iOS 7.

Gnome Business Plan with a health dose of separation from reality. From South Park.

The cast from Silicon Valley. Frighteningly accurate.

http://use-cases.org/

Short form & long form articles on this and other engineering topics.