How Deep are your Pockets ?

This is just a quick micro-blog introducing the Software ROI picture that I draw for executives to help them understand how deep they need their capital investment commitments in a Waterfall vs. an Agile project.  It's nothing revolutionary and you've probably seen it before.  The message is really quite simple.  Here's the picture:

The longer you wait to deliver value and receive money, the longer you are spending (investing) and the deeper that investment gets.  Instead of trying to release the entire system at once, we identify smaller features that can be released early to establish a return on investment sooner in the lifecycle.  The smaller you can make your releases, the less total investment you need to succeed.  Think about the current project you are working on.  How big do your pockets need to be for success.  Can you identify earlier release points that let you work with less investment and risk to the project?