Written by Hannah Vincent
‘You’re doing things. But are you achieving things?’
This was one of the questions posed during our recent webinar with partner 55 Degrees.
In the pursuit of certainty, we often create a lot of work for ourselves.
We document plans, details, roadmaps. But this busywork doesn’t lead us where we want to go, because true certainty is nigh-on impossible to achieve.
This is called Certainty Theatre. Teams (often under pressure from leadership) invest in performative tasks whilst wasting time, money and effort.
What we should be seeking, instead, is predictability. Let’s explore five ways you can improve predictability across your teams.
📺 Flow as an Executive Lever
This post follows the fascinating conversation that took place during a recent 55 Degrees’ webinar.
Discussions ranged from why the ‘Cone of Certainty’ is a fallacy, to practical steps leaders and managers can take to protect their teams from the Certainty Theatre.
Catch up with the recording now!
AC’s Hassan Khadra, Senior Project Manager and Agile Coach, was on the panel, alongside Daniel Vacanti, Co-Founder of Prokanban.org.
Hosting was Julia Wester, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of 55 Degrees.
Certainty vs predictability
Before we get into practical ways you can improve predictability, it’s important to understand some context.
We often see leaders chasing certainty around delivery – zoning in on a firm delivery date based on a want or need (as opposed to data or risk analysis). This desire for certainty tends to be influenced by external pressures such as budget allocation, market climate or competitor activity.
‘Our competitors have delivered X, so we need to deliver Y by this date’, may be a familiar example.
Not everything is knowable upfront – that’s something we embrace in Agile. Yet when we talk about delivery, leaders in particular seem to forget this principle. Instead, they apply pressure to teams on the ground to be certain about timescales and output – despite the fact that this kind of certainty is rarely realistic.
What is rooted in realism? Predictability: Based on risk profiles, reasoning and data.
Why do leaders tend to push back on predictability?
In our line of work, it’s not uncommon to see a disconnect between teams on the ground and C-Suite. Agile principles may be firmly embedded in your software development or engineering teams, but often become diluted (or utterly disbanded) as they travel up the ranks.
It’s also human nature to push back on constraints. We’ve all done it, right? Google Maps says we can walk somewhere in 10 minutes? Let’s do it in nine.
So when an Engineering Manager tells the CTO that their team has, say, an 85% chance of finishing X portfolio items a quarter, that executive thinks: I want us to do better. Let’s exceed the prediction, not meet it.
The trouble is, that 85% figure will have been secured through careful probabilistic forecasting, based on clear data.
If the Engineering Manager bumps their figure up to 90%, they may be giving the CTO a better answer on paper – but in reality, it’s not backed up by data and risk analysis.
And without changing resource, investment and capacity, that better answer does not correlate with a better outcome.
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So, how do we stop performing in the theatre of certainty?
Based on the expert insights of AC’s own Hassan Khadra, and Daniel Vacanti of Prokanban.org, here are 5 practical steps you can take to step out of the limelight and into the world of predictability.
1. Address organisation-wide Agile mindset
Uncertainty seems to operate on two levels. In product discovery, it’s widely accepted that a level of uncertainty is reasonable. But as soon as items start to come into the backlog and development work begins, leaders suddenly expect certainty around delivery.
Tolerating uncertainty needs to be addressed in work around cultural mindset and working environment – from the top down.
Now, as the manager of your team, influencing hearts and minds in the C-Suite can be challenging. This is where bringing in a certified Agile Coach, who could work directly with your senior stakeholders, can prove highly effective.
2. Review your Work in Progress (you’ve probably got too much)
Organisations accrue too much work in progress. Teams may think there’s no cost to adding a new idea, picking up a new task. But the more things you start, the longer those things will take.
We all intrinsically understand this – so why do we keep piling on the work?
There’s a human element to this; starting something new brings a buzz with it.
It makes us feel like we’re busy and we’re getting things done. But, to go back to the quote at the start of this piece, doing things is very different to achieving things.
Expert view
I like to always ask teams:
You have a backlog of 10 items. Over the course of a week, one team starts two and finishes two, whilst another team starts all 10, but finishes none. Which team has achieved more?
Your WiP column is a powerful indicator of delivery predictability, and whether you need to make changes to resources, capacity and leadership expectations.
– Hassan Khadra, Senior Project Manager and Agile Coach at Automation Consultants
3. Say no to micro-management
When leadership sees poor predictability, the knee-jerk reaction is often to request more control: More check-in meetings, status reports, and so on.
This is simply more theatre. It creates an illusion of control – but actually introduces greater disruption to the existing system, results in busywork, and wastes time and resources.
4. Take a look at your systems, not your teams
Following on from no.3, predictability is a systems factor, not a teams factor. If the system is set up well, leadership needs to let teams get on with their work.
If delivery predictability is not well-managed, the answer is not to waylay the team with greater scrutiny and more frequent check-ins (as mentioned above). This is counter-intuitive and disruptive to teams on the ground, leading to slower delivery and weakened predictability.
Instead, it’s time to look at how your systems and processes are running. Review data like your cycle times, and understand where you can redesign planning horizons, WiP limits and more. Ultimately, to achieve a more predictable system, you need to use data and metrics to improve stability of the system.
How mature are your Agile systems and working practices? Take our proven Agile maturity assessment to evaluate your Agile maturity levels across People and Strategy, to Culture and Operations.
5. AI is not necessarily the answer!
Both Hassan and Daniel are great advocates for AI. But it undeniably complicates things in terms of predictability.
Software development and engineering teams are using AI to get things out of the door faster. But what happens beyond that? We also need to be using AI to measure whether those things are viable, and to measure the impact of them.
It’s great that teams can ship faster, but what is the outcome? Is it improving your organisation’s bottom line?
Chances are, you don’t have the tooling in place yet to answer that.
If there’s one thing leadership should value, it’s predictability.
Predictability is not performative. It’s not influenced in needs or wants. Predictability is grounded in data, enables by well-designed systems, and is the strongest indicator of success that your leaders should rely on.
It’s not easy to effect change in C-Suite mindset.
So, bring in outside eyes and external expertise with an Agile Coach. External consultants are often more welcome to critique internal processes and systems – and can act as a lifeline for internal champions of change, adding weight to their recommendations, and bringing momentum to change initiatives.
Next steps:
Alongside our Agile consultancy services, explore our Strategic Portfolio Management solution, to review your systems, embed sustainable, long-term cultural change and help your teams make strategically aligned investment decisions.
Catch up with the full 55 Degrees and AC webinar here. 55 Degrees is a software company helping teams and organizations plan, forecast, work, and improve more effectively through its products, ActionableAgile® Analytics and Portfolio Forecaster
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