Evo Principle 3:

Evo steps deliver the specified requirements, evolutionarily

Discussion:

Evo is NOT about doing a series of tasks to build a system. That is 'incremental delivery'.

Evo is about two related ideas:

deliver real value to real stakeholders (value is defined by the requirements of those stakeholders)
and because we have tried to deliver real value, then at each step we should measure the results!
exactly what value was delivered?
exactly what did it cost compared to estimates?
did the stakeholder really get satisfied?
did new requirements get discovered?
did the technology work as expected?

And - what are you going to do NOW (next Evo step) about all this.

Evo is about feedback and learning. It is a 'Plan Do Study Act cycle' (Deming).

One important consequence of this is that the formal requirements are very important. If they are not unambiguously clear, if benefits and costs are not quantified - then we cannot use Evo in the rational engineering mode that is the expected mode of use.

Are your most critical improvement requirements and objectives quantified, so you can engineer your system - or are they stated without numbers?

Example:

'In parallel with the development activities of the team, selected users or customers of the system are working with and providing feedback on the release from the previous cycle. This feedback is used to adjust the plan for the following cycles.'

Todd Cotton, HP Journal August 1996.

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