Dealing with creative versus repeatable pipeline activities

One of the challenges with improving value stream deliveries is the challenges associated with automating or even estimating the scope of work involved in concept ideation, requirements definition, and analysis. In software development, we refer to this stage as the Fuzzy Frontend.

This term was originally coined by Peter Koen, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. It refers to the value stream activities associated with creating new product ideas and concepts that need to be analyzed to determine customer fit and commercial viability.

Some of these activities are controlled by the product management or product owner function. This is because they alone have the responsibility of deciding what goes into a product and what does not. But the development teams are also involved as they must assess the difficulty and time required to implement each new requirement. In Agile, we refer to assessing requirements...