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agile delivery

What is predictable & agile delivery?

All delivery systems create value for customers. In a Predictable & Agile Delivery system, 'value' flows:

  • Rapidly, to get feedback from customers in weeks not years
  • Adaptably, to respond to changing demands and incorrect assumptions
  • Effectively, balancing quality of outcome with efficiency of operation

Managers who know how to achieve this optimise delivery systems continually. Improvement is done efficiently, by collaborating with delivery teams and removing obstacles to performance.

Quality first

The crucial challenge for knowledge work is quality. A new software feature may pass QA and HR may hire the best candidate for a role, but these are subjective. In reality, these processes are rarely documented and often badly flawed. Of course, people do their best under these conditions. Yet the result is inconsistent outputs and problems that have to be corrected later. The costs saved today are wiped out in re-work and apologising to customers, later.

Lean meets Agile

Lean techniques are particularly good for increasing efficiency and Agile for improving adaptability. They need to balance though, because one is good for production at scale, the other for exploring new designs and solutions.

Both are tried and tested approaches that maximise operational effectiveness.

The sun setting through a dense forest.
The sun shining over a ridge leading down into the shore. In the distance, a car drives down a road.

The journey to achieving predictable and agile delivery is shorter and faster than you think.


Agile Delivery builds on four Lean Agile practices

Prioritising for value

Prioritisation resolves tensions and diverse demands by clarifying what matters most, right now:

  • Highest value to customers
  • Needs of other departments
  • Org and department strategy
  • Teams' capabilities and capacity

Prioritisation helps people make decisions, at all levels.

Managing for agility

Managers were written-out of the Agile movement yet they are crucial for improving Business Agility, by:

  • Leading collaboration
  • Ensuring prioritisation
  • Developing competence

Technology managers support developers, who are "uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it."

Leadership at every level

Improving organisation-wide agility depends on managers at every level. Their curiosity and willingness to explore is crucial. Improvement emerges in its way, not from projects or plans.

The guiding principle is 'inspect and adapt'. Change the smallest thing you do now that could be done better. I guarantee you will look back and notice the transformation.

March 26, 2023
What is contextual ambidexterity?

Contextual ambidexterity is a culture that expects exceptional performance in both innovation and operation, overturning the illusion that it is either/or. Contextual ambidexterity is agile for managers.

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September 7, 2023
Manage tensions if you want an agile transformation

Today’s challenge is that traditional management approaches, where managers tell people what to do and how to do it, are not as effective as they once were. Agile transformation takes years, but changing management’s focus from people to tensions could be a better solution. It is simpler, faster, and considerably more cost-effective. Management is the […]

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April 28, 2023
Collaboration versus simplification for organisational change

One of my favourite books on organisational change is ‘Who Moved my Cheese?’ It’s short, and mice looking for cheese to eat is an appealing analogy. It’s a model for managers because it covers four theoretical outcomes of change. Those outcomes are: what happens if I (or we) do, or don’t make this change, what […]

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Copyright Russ Lewis 1994-2025
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