[CartyBoston]

In the startup world and in much of the tech corporate world in practice predictability is valued above all else. It's because investors, perhaps reasonably, value and therefore demand predictions.

But as we know that is fundamentally difficult. So many tech orgs make up a "hero-hustle" culture to compensate. "We're top 10% and we work all the time, this is the best we can do!"

Strong leadership is strong leadership, building the right product development culture is really hard.

[ramijames]

I agree with this.

Visibility and accountability shouldn't trump creativity and innovation. Good leadership doesn't allow that to happen.

Bad agile is just bad leadership in practice.

[from-nibly]

The hero hustle hides all the bad stuff which will then never get fixed.

Predictability is a fantasy. It's predicting the future. No one can do it. When you hear someone say they've figured out a way to get predictability they are lying, in much the same way people who say they've come up with a new guaranteed way to make money off the stock market are lying.

[nradov]

Predictability depends primarily on the time scale, plus a few other factors. I have seen existence proofs of mature, disciplined organizations using stable technology consistently hitting >90% of commitments over periods of up to 3 months. Over longer periods or when more research is needed then predictability will necessarily be lower.

While perfect predictability is impossible, many organizations have lower predictability than they could. This usually comes down to lack of discipline, which is a fixable problem (much easier than beating the stock market). Insisting on high levels of discipline eliminates the need for "hero hustle".