Some people want to dodge committing to dates, but what is the point of not having an estimate in the diary we can all work towards?
by Mark McKee, 22nd July 2024
I’m starting to become a bit of a skeptic around much of the hype that has surrounded and seems now to be grinding down, agile methods for delivering change in a business. When we are building a new feature, we need to come up with an estimate that we can use for milestones at the outset that speaks to:
- The business problem we are addressing
- The benefits of our solution
- What is in scope?
- What is out of scope?
- Potential risks we need to be aware of and agree upon
- What manner we are delivering this in? E.g. can we get a minimal viable product (MVP) for early feedback and continue from there?
Hint, telling people you need to take a year to build something will (or at least should) get you fired these days!
Most people who have been around for a while know we can’t forecast dates out of thin air when we are dealing with uncertainty, especially when building a brand-new feature, but we still should expect to be held accountable to a mutually agreed estimate that a team can stand behind and not feel they are being pushed to cut corners. As work progresses, the estimates get firmer and may need a bit of adjusting and ensuring that stakeholders are informed as part of reporting on progress regularly. The best way to do this is, of course, through demonstrating what is being built so that the discussion is more concrete, given a working product is the best measure of progress.
There is nothing more frustrating for a stakeholder or sponsor than being a week away from a planned release date only to be informed that there are issues pushing it out by some unforeseen number of weeks and the date will be forthcoming when they know more. This usually happens where there is a lack of engagement between delivery teams and stakeholders. With regular engagement it is fairly exceptional that something isn’t known in advance that a planned date is unachievable. So by keeping in regular contact, everyone gets transparency on progress and can be advised of blockers that need to be resolved.
I’ve worked with large organisations of tens of thousands of people through to with start-ups with tens of people. In both cases:
- A start-up needs to be able to tell its investors when the new product is coming otherwise they risk having their next funding tranche vanish.
- A delivery team in a larger firm needs to be able to tell its business sponsors that their investment is being managed wisely and they really understand how their work aligns with the business strategy and priorities.
Don’t fear giving realistic dates and standing behind them
For delivery teams in any size of organisation, don’t fear giving realistic estimated dates and standing behind them. Something that may seem small to a stakeholder could take two months to implement so it can operate safely and robustly. The recent Crowdstrike outage for Microsoft devices (19th July 2024 may well be the largest outage in technology history so far) is a case in point to never cut corners! There may be a day-1 or MVP with known limitations while we work on day-2 after customers start using it. In that way you get to market faster and learn what works best for your customers from them directly, rather than trying to second-guess their behaviours and needs.
Great delivery is all about beating your competition out there in the real world by being customer-driven. Internally, you’ll be seen as a great investment by your sponsors!
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