Exercise 2: A Less Compelling Opportunity — Possible Solution ==================================================================== SETUP ------------------------------ new_opportunity's value changed from 9 to 3 RESULTS ------------------------------ FIXED PLAN: ['feature A', 'feature B', 'feature C'], total value: 24 RE-PRIORITIZED: ['feature A', 'feature B', 'feature C'], total value: 24 Difference: 0 With the new opportunity's value lowered to 3 - below feature B (8) and feature C (6), the two items already in the plan - the re-prioritization logic naturally leaves the plan unchanged. Both approaches deliver the identical set of features and the identical total value. WHAT THIS REVEALS ------------------------------ The chapter's own 12.5% improvement wasn't a fixed property of "being able to respond to change" in general - it was specific to THAT opportunity genuinely being worth more (9) than the plan's own lowest-priority remaining item (C, worth 6) at the time it was discovered. A re-prioritizable backlog doesn't manufacture value out of flexibility alone; it only captures value that's actually there to capture. When the "new" thing isn't actually better than what's already planned, responding to it costs nothing (this simulation correctly declines to include it) but also gains nothing. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ This is an important, honest correction to a naive reading of "responding to change is always good": the real claim this chapter supports is narrower and more defensible - having the OPTION to respond to change has value precisely because some future information will turn out to matter, without knowing in advance which information that will be. A rigid plan can't capture that value even when it appears; a flexible one captures it when it's real and correctly ignores it when it isn't, which is exactly what this exercise's own result demonstrates.