11. Stopwatch: Just in time

In an earlier post, I talked about "stop the line", but did not mention preceding concept of "just in time".

For product management, "just in time" may mean

• Committing to a user request as delayed as possible: This gives us a opportunity to collect maximum information about the request, and keep collecting more until it is finally the time to make a decision.
• Delivering the response to customer as early as possible: Don't keep it on shelf. Deliver it hot and fresh.

As delayed as possible does not mean forever; just-in-time also implies that every activity in the stream must be timed (stopwatch concept), and if any work fails to start/end by stipulated time, then it is considered late.

Along the same lines, it is a good idea to have timed product releases. It is a fairly strong concept in my opinion especially if you are working with a product with difficult consumption. Any software product to be deployed in an enterprise level environment is a good example.

A timed release gives organizations opportunity to plan for upgrades/deployments, as they can expect more stability compared to last release. Complemented with constant visibility into development status, the whole process becomes even more easier.