Delivery Performance Domain

The Delivery Performance Domain addresses the activities and functions associated with delivering the scope and quality that the project was undertaken to achieve. It is where value is converted from plan to reality.

Three core concerns: requirements (what the deliverable must do), scope definition (what work will produce it), and quality (does it meet the acceptance criteria and fitness for purpose). Quality is built into the work — it is not an inspection step at the end. The cost of correcting defects increases exponentially the later they are found.

Requirements are elicited through interviews, workshops, observation, prototypes, surveys, and document analysis. They must be unambiguous, testable, traceable, and prioritised (e.g. MoSCoW). Scope statements, WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), and PBS (Product Breakdown Structure) make scope explicit.

Value is delivered through outputs (what you build), outcomes (the change they enable), and benefits (the measurable improvements). The Delivery domain is responsible for outputs; the wider organisation realises the benefits — but the project team should design for benefit realisation from day one.

Desired outcomes: the project delivers agreed scope and quality on time; deliverables enable intended outcomes and benefits.

Key Points

• Quality is built in, not inspected in — cost of defects rises with time to detection
• Requirements: elicit, document, validate, prioritise, trace
• MoSCoW prioritisation: Must, Should, Could, Won't (this time)
• WBS decomposes work; PBS decomposes products — they are complementary
• Outputs → Outcomes → Benefits — value chains beyond delivery
• Acceptance criteria define when a deliverable is 'done'
• Definition of Done (adaptive) is the team's shared completion standard
• Cost of Quality = prevention + appraisal + internal failure + external failure
• Prevention costs typically pay back many times over in failure costs avoided

Key Terms & Definitions

Scope

The sum of the products, services and results to be provided as a project.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

A hierarchical decomposition of the total work required to deliver the project's objectives and produce the required deliverables.

Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)

A hierarchical decomposition of the products (deliverables) that the project will produce.

Cost of Quality (CoQ)

The total cost of conformance (prevention + appraisal) plus the cost of non-conformance (internal failure + external failure).

Definition of Done

A shared, agreed-upon checklist of criteria that a work item must meet to be considered complete in an adaptive context.

MoSCoW

A requirements prioritisation technique: Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have (this time).