The Delivery Performance Domain is about the activities and functions that make sure a project delivers on its promise. In simple terms, this domain ensures the project produces the right deliverables, with the right scope and quality, so that the intended outcomes and benefits can be realized.
When executed effectively, this domain leads to:
- Projects contributing to business objectives and strategy.
- Outcomes being delivered as planned.
- Benefits being realized within the expected time frame.
- A clear understanding of requirements by the team.
- Deliverables that are accepted and valued by stakeholders.
Think of it as the bridge between planning and results. If the planning domain sets the map, the delivery domain is the journey itself.
Delivery of Value
Projects exist to deliver value, whether in the form of products, services, or solutions. The value might appear gradually through iterative releases or all at once through a final big delivery.
Example: In our e-commerce website project, the team may start by delivering a basic catalog and search function. Even before the full site is finished, customers can browse products. Later, payment gateways, user accounts, and personalized recommendations can be released, adding more value over time.
The key is ensuring the project’s outcomes tie back to the organization’s goals, such as improving online sales or capturing new customers.
Deliverables
Deliverables are the tangible outputs of the project, either interim or final, that enable outcomes.
Requirements
Requirements define what the deliverables need to achieve. Good requirements are clear, concise, verifiable, and complete.
- Eliciting requirements: Talking to users, observing behavior, or reviewing past issues.
- Evolving requirements: Using prototypes or mock-ups to refine what stakeholders actually need.
- Managing requirements: Avoiding scope creep and ensuring alignment across all stakeholders.
Example: For the e-commerce site, requirements could include “users must be able to pay using credit cards and UPI.” Prototypes of the checkout page can help refine these requirements before development starts.
Scope Definition
Scope defines the boundaries of the project, what is included and what is not. This can be done using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) or agile tools like epics and user stories.
Example: In the e-commerce site, one epic might be “Secure Checkout.” This can be broken into features like payment gateway integration and order confirmation. Each feature is then further broken down into user stories, such as “As a shopper, I want to save my card details for faster checkout.”
Completion of Deliverables
How do we know something is truly “done”?
- Acceptance criteria clarify when a deliverable meets stakeholder expectations.
- Technical performance measures ensure the deliverable meets required specifications.
- Definition of Done (DoD) provides a checklist, often used in agile projects.
Example: A DoD for the “Add to Cart” function may include: items correctly added, cart updates reflected in real-time, and totals calculated accurately. Only when all these are met can the feature be considered done.
Moving Targets of Completion
In dynamic environments, what “done” means may shift over time. Competitors, new technologies, or market changes can move the goalpost. This is sometimes called done drift.
Example: If a competitor e-commerce site launches a one-click checkout feature while your project is still in development, stakeholders might update requirements to include a similar feature, shifting your definition of completion.
In more stable environments, the challenge is often scope creep, where stakeholders keep adding features without adjusting time, budget, or resources. A strong change control process helps manage this.
Quality
Delivering scope is not enough. The outputs must also meet quality expectations. Quality is about ensuring the product performs reliably and satisfies customer needs.
The Cost of Quality (COQ) provides a structured way to think about quality investment:
- Prevention: Designing a secure system to avoid data breaches.
- Appraisal: Testing checkout functionality before launch.
- Internal failure: Fixing bugs in the staging environment.
- External failure: Resolving complaints from customers after launch.
It is always cheaper to catch issues early. This ties directly into the Cost of Change Curve, which shows that fixing a defect in production is far more expensive than fixing it during design.
Example: Correcting a typo in the product description during development costs nothing. Fixing an issue after customers place wrong orders due to that typo could mean refunds, bad reviews, and loss of trust.
Suboptimal Outcomes
Even with the best efforts, not all projects deliver perfect results. Sometimes outcomes are late, less impactful than expected, or the market changes before the product launches.
Example: If the e-commerce site launches too late and competitors already dominate the market, the project may technically succeed in delivering scope but fail to create the intended business impact.
The goal is to minimize such risks, but acknowledging this possibility is part of project reality.
Interactions with Other Performance Domains
The Delivery Performance Domain does not work in isolation. It connects with:
- Planning Domain: Delivery is based on what was planned.
- Development Approach and Life Cycle Domain: The delivery cadence depends on whether the approach is agile, predictive, or hybrid.
- Project Work Domain: Smooth delivery is possible only if processes, procurements, and resources are managed well.
- Uncertainty Domain: Changes, risks, and unknowns affect what and how we deliver.
In short, delivery is the outcome of the combined effort of all other domains.
Checking Results
Delivery performance can be measured by:
- Were the project objectives achieved?
- Did stakeholders accept the deliverables?
- Were benefits realized as intended?
- Did the outcomes align with business strategy?
Example: For the e-commerce site, success metrics could include number of active users, completed transactions, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction ratings.
Key Takeaways
- The Delivery Performance Domain ensures projects actually create the outcomes and benefits they were started for.
- Deliverables must meet requirements, scope, and quality expectations.
- Value delivery may be incremental or final, but it must tie back to business goals.
- Quality investments early in the project save time, money, and reputation later.
- Managing moving targets, preventing scope creep, and learning continuously are critical for success.
- Delivery connects with all other performance domains to bring project work to life.
Check more articles on Performance Domains