New features coming in July

I started work this week on 2 new features that will show up in both Decision Driven® Strategy and Life during July.

First, I’m adding a second Compare Alternatives chart.  The current alternative comparison uses a Tornado Diagram to enable users to compare the relative advantages of any pair of alternatives.  It does a great job of highlighting why Alternative A is superior to B and whether it’s a slam-dunk decision or a close tie between the two.  This works well for most technology decisions that typically come down to 2 or 3 viable alternatives.  However, some portfolio decisions may have 10 - 15 viable alternatives from which you may choose to pursue (implement) 5 to 8 over time.  It takes quite a few pairwise comparisons to discern the best of the best, reorder them based on overall results and determine where to draw the cut-line of a list of projects, products or markets that are competing for the same resources.

To provide a many-at-a-time alternative comparison I’m adding a summary scoring bar chart to the Compare Alternatives window that will highlight the effectiveness of each alternative compared to the “ideal” alternative.  Second, I’m providing a Spider Chart (aka Radar Diagram) view that can compare the effectiveness of up to 5 alternatives (user-selectable) at a time.  My goal is to release the improved Compare Alternatives feature by mid-July.

I’ve also started work on a better Align Roadmaps capability that will enable you to build explicit dependency relationships between alternatives in multiple decisions.  This will make it easier to visualize and manage dependencies among evolving technologies, capabilities, products and markets.  Delaying the availability date of a technology alternative will push out products that have planned to use it.  Along with this feature I’ve planned a filtered version of the Roadmap that shows only the network/thread of alternatives that are linked to/from any specific alternative.  This will help users do a “what-if” to assess the impact if a specific alternative (e.g. technology, feature or product) slips by 9 months.  I plan to release the Align Roadmap feature by the end of July.

If you have additional ideas for capabilities or enhancements, please use the feedback forms on the www.decisiondriven.com web site to provide your inputs.  Thanks!