The Power of Predictability

Transcript: 

Does your team miss deadlines or struggle to estimate large projects?

Maybe they commit to too much work and resist tracking story points.
They struggle to finish what they start and you can see their stories carrying over from sprint to sprint? In this week's session of Project at night, we discover how all of these problems are rooted in the same principle predictability.

A team's failure to be predictable can impact their ability to forecast estimate, commit.

It erodes the trust of their leaders and even prevents them from providing value to their customers.

At Institute Agility, our coaches have helped dozens of teams achieve predictability and all of the benefits it affords.

We know how frustrating it is to be forced to say yes to everything because you don't have a good way to show that it doesn't fit?

We know the pain of stories that never seem to reach the finish line and the paralysis a team faces when they try to estimate a big project.

We also know the fear of missing another go live, but how to become more predictable.

It starts with understanding where you are from missing deadlines at the last minute to forecasting danger months in advance.

Understanding where your team is on the spectrum of predictability is the first step?

You need a clear picture of which elements lead to predictability and of those which you're missing.

It's powerful to ask questions like:

• Do we measure our velocity?
• Do we only accept what will fit into the sprint based on that velocity?
• Do we look forward 3-5 sprints to make sure it all fits?
• Are we transparent with our stakeholders about what's in danger? And if we do, do we reassess that risk often.
• Do we have a road now, do we know how to estimate quickly at high levels so that we can create a road map, evaluate your team's ability to trust and participate in healthy conflict as these are major predecessors to predictability
  

Project:Ignite will lead you slowly through integral parts of becoming agile and will help you measure where you are now, show you what's possible and forge a way for your team by designing experiments and then we'll share our experiences with each other.