EBM: Difference between Time To Market and Ability to Innovate
When reading the EBM guide, I do not really understand why "time spent merging code between branches", "technical debt", "time spent context-switching" and "installed version index" fall into the category Ability to Innovate as, IMHO, they directly influence Time To Market metrics (e.g. they slow it down). Could you please clarify why is it the case?
I personally interpret T2M as the reactiveness to deliver new value; while A2I as the effectiveness in delivering new value to the customer (hopefully in a positive way). But when reading their examples, they seem to be quite similar and related. Probably my current understanding about these 2 KVAs is poor, so please feel free to correct me in this case.
Thank you very much in advance for your help.
The ability to innovate means you can build the right thing at the right time. The ability is there. The question remains however: do you?
A good time to market suggests that indeed you do...but then again, perhaps you are really just producing the wrong thing more quickly.
Hence you need a perspective on both.
Under A2I there are 2 questions organizations should be regularly asking themselves…
- What prevents the organization from delivering new value?
- What prevents customers or users from benefiting from that innovation
The A2I KVAs are aligned to factors that may prevent innovation. Tech Debt, excessive time spent merging and context switching etc can be indicators of other issues or systemic problems that could impact ability to innovate. Maybe tech debt is so great that no new things can be introduced for fear of product collapse.
That said, I think the A2I KVAs you mentioned could also serve T2M.
Worth noting that the EBM guide states
To encourage adaptability, EBM defines no specific Key Value Measures (KVMs). KVMs listed below are presented to show the kinds of measures that might help an organization to understand its current state, desired future state, and factors that influence its ability to improve.
Let's discuss this project:
I need to create a new phone for blind people with one main features
ability to scan 1 meter radius and inform the which object are around him / her
T2M is 6 months from now
A2I is how can we achieve this in 6 months
in my experience, we need to remind us time to time the scope / time
how much we can deliver our best (A2I) within time limit (T2M)
in this project,
A2I is how can we enable the phone to recognize 10 basic objects e.g. road, elevator, etc effectively
we may replace some object with others but max is 10 (scope) else no object changes will be better
while T2M will remain 6 months