Work by Value

There are innumerous blogs on Agile. In this post I want to describe my experience on Agile Values and how in order to "Deliver by Value" as emphasised by Agile we need to actually "Work by Value" to reach the goal.

To start of with, one needs to understand to understand what Value means. Let me talk to you about the Automobile industry. Every Car company tries to hand out a set of Values on their product for their Customers. For example Value of Maintainability.

For one of the Car company, they may invest in setting up service stations in every nook and corner including the remotest part of the world. To help achieve this the Car company may use products which are cheaper and are made readily available everywhere by their vendors. Here the company is trying to achieve Value of Maintainabilty by having a large foot print of service stations providing service with low cost to the Customer.

For another Car company it would be to deliver a Car with least maintainance. To achieve this the Car company will set in processes that adhere to stringent Quality measures to ensure that there are minimum breakdowns even when the car is sold in the remotest part of the world. Here the company is trying to achieve Value of Maintainabilty by adhereing to stringent Quality measures, even though the Cost is high.

So from the above example we can see that the Value delivered to the End Customer is Maintanability. Based on the Customer's view point of the Value, the customer may choose either of the Cars.

Its the same in case of Software development. The product or services companies need to identify the Value they deliver to their customer. Its one thing to say what Value your product offers and another to say what Value your product addressess. Because the later will cater to exactly what the customers are looking for.

Any thoughts?