The Proof/ Case study
How Acorn staggered the rollout of team members to go from kickoff to a 1.0 release by week five, for a light finishing trades construction products and services provider.
Building software has a reputation for taking far longer and costing far more than planned, and the video describes a rule of thumb of twice the time and three times the money.
It says part of the problem is confusion about how the process works, and part is people who underestimate on purpose.
Acorn set out to show another way of building software, using a real engagement from the previous year. The plan ran from kickoff through a staggered rollout in which team members were added in stages.
Acorn already knew something about the client's business going in, which gave a better ramp up. The presenter, Mike Zarowski, also cites working with over 100 teams over about 20 years and being part of over a dozen startups, which he says helped him assemble a team quickly.
The project had a 1.0 delivered by week five. More was delivered after that, and the video says this pace is what Acorn tries to achieve on all of its projects.
Watch the video on YouTube (2:29)
Leaders who expect software to run long and over budget, and want to see a plan that gets a first release out in weeks.