Most delivery problems aren’t execution problems.

They’re measurement problems.

For years, we’ve managed work through abstraction: plans, milestones, utilization, on-time, on-budget.

That abstraction works when development is predictable. When things don’t change a lot.

It doesn’t work when:

• customer needs shift mid-development
• dependencies undermine commitments
• priorities change faster than our projects take to deliver

In other words, it hasn’t worked for a while.  

When our abstractions – plans, milestones, utilization and capacity management – stop predicting outcomes, we need to get closer to what’s actually being developed.  

This means measuring what value gets delivered, not how much work has been done. It means measuring how quickly changes can get in front of customers, not how busy people are. It means measuring the value-creation capacity of a team, not the utilization of everyone on the team.

What I see in high-performing orgs isn’t “more efficient delivery” – it’s different leadership behavior:

• staying closer to what’s actually happening
• steering through incremental value, not busywork
• applying pressure through clarity and focus, not dates and commitments

If this feels uncomfortably familiar, that’s usually a signal worth paying attention to.  

Talk to us about how to measure what’s actually going on, instead of an abstraction.