Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Cost of delay
The value lost for each unit of time a piece of work remains unshipped. Sequencing by cost of delay, rather than by effort, age or advocacy, is the economic core of prioritisation.
Where the standard develops it
- DE-1Prioritisation under constraintSequencing, trade-offs, saying no.
Related terms
- Portfolio governance
- An explicit, ranked and deliberately small set of concurrent initiatives at organisational scale, reviewed against evidence on a cadence.
- Trade-off transparency
- Saying no by showing the cost of yes ("we can do this, and that slips; which do you want?"), so the stakeholder makes an informed choice and the manager does not quietly absorb the demand.
- Work-in-progress limit
- A cap on how much is in flight at once, so that the most important things finish sooner.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Cost of delay. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.cost-of-delay). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/cost-of-delay