Changing the project language

I have been struggling with the notion of projects. Everything seems to be a project. Like project is a general purpose container for getting things done. It could take a week it could take a year - surely these are not the same thing!

I have been experimenting with changing the language we use when we start something to be more descriptive and symbolic.

This starts with deciding what kind of thing we are doing - shifting the focus and conversation to the purpose and intent. There's some risk in there too :)

The language I have been playing with describes 3 type of things we could be doing - black holes, bets and bounties.

Black holes pull us off course and can pull us in. They needed to be discovered and navigated around. There needs to be a route - we don't want to stumble across one and have to suddenly correct our course.

These are the regulations we need to adhere to. These are the changes to outdated toolsets which risk being unsupported. These are the compounded consequences of doing it cheaply or quickly for too long. These are the hygiene features we need to provide for our customers.

Black holes affect our bottom line. They suck money, time and attention away from our growth and goals. They can consume us. They also don't have costs we can control to a great degree - they need to be done.

Bet's are anything new. A good bet makes us money, a bad bet looses us money.  They have odds - the higher the odds, the higher the risk, the higher the potential reward and losses.

We can talk about how long the bet is for and the odds on it making us money. We might and probably should break big bets up into smaller bets. This costs us time but reduces our exposure to the risk by reducing the odds of each bet, allowing us to stop placing bets if the odds turn against us.

These are new features we have investigated and qualified. These are opportunities 3rd parties approach us with. These are pivots that we have data to qualify. These are requests from customers that sound like a good idea.

Bets swim with assumptions - some we can test, some we can't. The more we cannot know, the higher the risk that we might not recoup our stake.

If a bet goes bad, we can stop (and lick our wounds), increase the stake or hedge with another bet against an alternative outcome. These are controllable costs to us as we assess the risk and reward and aim to not get in too deep.

Bounties are decisions to do something to which we assign a fixed cost. We are explicit with our goal or it's implementation. Whoever picks up the bounty knows we only pay what the bounty is worth and no more. Bounties are not broken down - they are all or nothing.

There might be no data to support a bounty. They might be laden with risk but we have decided to do them anyway. We address the risk by assigning a cost that we are able and willing to lose.

These are the re-branding decisions. These are purchases of tools or equipment. These are one off publicity stunts. These are speaking at conferences to gain industry exposure. These are deciding to start a blog ;)

Bounties work well for talking about things we feel or think are a good idea but cannot measure. How do you measure sentiment or feeling or trust? With bounties you don't have to - you just have decide how much you can spend on trying to affect it.

The intangible nature of bounties means you have to resign to the cost being lost. It might work but you might never know.

To help people learn how to use these, here are some questions you can ask to help everyone identify what this project actually is:

1) Do we have to do this? - Black hole
2) What would happen if we didn't? - Black hole
3) Is this something we can postpone? - Black hole/Bet
3) How long do you think it would take to get our investment back? - Bet
4) What do we know already? - Bet
5) What is the main risk with doing this? - Bet
6) What gives you confidence this is the right thing to do? - Bet/Bounty
7) Under what circumstances would we loose our investment in this? - Bet
8) How could you measure the outcome? - Bet/Bounty
9) How long would we have to wait to get our investment back? - Bet
10) How much could we afford to spend on this if we assumed the worst and it would not make us money? - Bounty

In summary:
Black Holes - Upfront Budgeting, Based on Requirement, variable time frame, planned
Bets - Incremental Investment, Based on Risk, predictable/controllable time frame, planned/responsive
Bounties - Fixed cost Investment, Based on Sentiment or 'gut', fixed time frame, responsive/opportunistic

A work in progress - thought and ideas appreciated :)