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Finished Consider Payoff
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robmoffat committed Mar 26, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -105,8 +105,14 @@ The important take-away here is that you don't have to accept the dilemma as sta

The diagram above shows our decision as _moves on the [Risk Landscape](../thinking/Glossary.md#risk-landscape)_. Whether you "Go Live" first, or "UAT" first makes a difference to where you will end up. Is there a further action you can take to get you from the "Dead End" to the "Goal"? Perhaps.

## What To Do?
## Parting Ways With Agile

In reality, payoff is made more tricky because often the actions you take might depend on each other, the payoff might not be immediate and (unlike making a bet in the real world) you can't be certain what the payoff will be in advance. Nevertheless, this is a really useful concept in software engineering because it clarifies the decision you're making.
In reality, payoff is made more tricky because often the actions you take might depend on each other, the payoff might not be immediate and (unlike making a bet in the real world) you can't be certain what the payoff will be in advance. Nevertheless, this is a really useful concept in software engineering because it clarifies the decision you're making.

In order to make the most of payoff, first you need to make sure you're [Tracking Risk](Track-Risk.md) properly.
Many Agile frameworks such as [Scrum](../bets/Purpose-Development-Team#case-2-scrum) place a lot of emphasis on estimating and time-boxing work: trying to work out when you're going to deliver something and sticking to it. But Risk-First is suggesting a totally different focus: factors like _time taken to deliver_ and _coordinating the completion of work_ are just risks to consider along with all the others.

The most valuable project management skill is being able to chart a course which minimises risk. Sometimes, that will mean [hitting a deadline](../risks/Deadline-Risk.md), but equally it could be [reducing codebase complexity](../risks/Complexity-Risk.md), [making a feature more accessible](../risks/Feature-Risk.md#feature-access-risk) or [removing problematic dependencies](../risks/Software-Dependency-Risk.md).

The most important skill is to be able to _weigh up the risks_ and decide which course of action gives you the greatest payoff.

And in order to make the most of payoff, first you need to make sure you're [tracking those risks](Track-Risk.md) in the first place.

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