April 11, 2023

How to Keep Stakeholders Happy

Building Software in a World That Wants More Than You Can Deliver

Bringing the new system online by the end of the quarter seemed like an easy promise to make at the time. In today’s project status meeting you reassured your boss that everything was on track. Now, you’re trying to convince yourself that you’ll still meet the deadline, thinking:

“Of course, we can get it done in the next two weeks! All it takes is a handful of sleepless nights, a long weekend or two at the keyboard, and an endless stream of coffee for the entire team. Once that’s finished, the boss will be thrilled and thankful for all the hard work. Bonuses and praise will abound, pushing morale through the roof. The best part is that it was a one-time thing and will never happen again…”

…except that’s not how the story usually ends, is it?

Instead, you get a pat on the back, your boss feels justified in the deadline, they aren’t necessarily happy (just relieved), and this happens again next quarter. So how do you break the cycle? While it may seem impossible, the truth is that it’s relatively easy.

You have to do just two things: Build trust and manage expectations.

Both are achievable by doing high-level planning while considering each team's capacity before beginning work on your next quarter, release, Program Increment, or whatever vehicle you use to encompass your next delivery. This activity is aptly named: Capacity Planning.

Step 1: Destroy the Myth

The assumption that our bosses are only happy if we get all the work done is false. What makes a good executive happy is seeing a reasonable plan for delivery and being given enough time to adjust if anything changes.

Meeting a commitment typically trumps the amount of work, so don’t waste your energy figuring out how to do more. Instead, focus on how to make a reasonable commitment and build trust with your leadership through a data-driven, well-thought-out, realistic plan before your fingers hit the keyboard.

Step 2: Fill Up the Bucket

Start by picking your time frame, teams, and work items. Capacity Planning is about taking the workload and spreading it across the teams. You don’t necessarily need Rally by Broadcom to do this, but it does offer an excellent easy option. Rally even allows you to build multiple potential plans if you have flexibility in your work-to-team associations.

At this stage, don’t be shy! Dream big to get an appreciation for both the “ask” and the builders at your disposal.

Step 3: Get Real

This is when you start making those executives happy by getting the bad news out of the way before the work begins. You must “get real” about the workload by bringing estimates for each item to the table. These can be preliminary or refined estimates, but get the best data available to you and give every work item a value.

Next, look into your team's history for similar time frames and see how much you can actually do. We’re always tempted to give excuses about how last time was unique, and we will certainly do more this time, but the truth is teams wind up being very consistent. Last time was not special, and this time won’t be either. Trust your past performance and create a total capacity for each team derived from this historical data.

At this point, you will see the sum of work assigned to each team and the amount of work they can do. In Rally, we put this front and center to highlight where teams are asked to do more than their capacity will allow.

Now is the time to talk about expectations and scope with your leaders. These are hard conversations, but when everyone is looking at the data, it's obvious whether or not you’re biting off more than you can chew.

Working on this plan together allows all stakeholders to be part of the solution and reach a compromise that everyone believes is achievable. It also has the secondary effect of protecting your team from late nights and inevitable burnout.

All About Trust

Stakeholders want realistic expectations when they invest in work and to have time to react when plans change. Teams want a positive work-life balance and not be forced to over-commit. Capacity Planning can deliver both by allowing you to test your ideal plan against reality, giving you more confidence in the outcome before work begins.

To learn more about how Rally can help you bring Capacity Planning into your workflow, check out the video below from our course on Portfolio Management. If you’re already a Broadcom customer, head to the Enterprise Software Academy and take the course today!

Tag(s): ValueOps , Rally , Capacity Planning

Nate Bever

Nate Bever is a Product Manager for Rally. He uses his 20+ years of experience in a variety of roles in the software industry - including working on multiple Agile transformations - to help customers achieve balance and success through agile development practices.

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