Cost of Delay

September 10, 2020

A 2-min video and some ideas I borrowed re: Cost of Delay.
Imagine you leave the house 15 minutes late resulting in a 30-minute longer commute, plus you miss an important meeting. That’s cost of delay.
Delay a project by a quarter you’ve incurred a “cost” of a quarter’s worth of that benefit.
Miss a market window of opportunity and you’ll incur an even greater penalty.
But, delay is not just in money. You also need to consider your market share, customer loyalty, and brand as you make tradeoffs.
If you delay a project and your biggest competitor releases their version, what will that do to your market share?
On the flip side, rush to market with a buggy product and you’ll negatively impact customer loyalty and, perhaps, overall sales.
There’s also a “cost” associated with late feedback. What if your hypothesis is incorrect? Wouldn’t you rather have more time to adjust? How many times have you thought “I wish we’d known that sooner!!!”