Stage 3
Predictability
“When will it be done?”
The tribe stops working reactively. It decides to measure and manage flow. It knows how much work it can take on and when that work will be done. It stops working “everyone for themselves” and starts to see the whole.
Reactivity and unpredictability - teams stop being caught out by unplanned work and dependencies. The planning horizon stops being the pressure of “we have to make it” and becomes a boundary the tribe can safely plan for in advance. The tribe lead can draw on data, not just intuition.
How to recognise this stage
- Flow measures such as cycle time and lead time are measured and discussed in leadership and team forums (e.g. retrospectives)
- Initiatives are managed so that they last one planning cycle (e.g. a quarter) at most and have a definition of “done” tied to value
- Mechanisms for handling unplanned work are being introduced and improved: a capacity buffer, a dedicated stream or the decision “this comes in instead of that”
- The delivery process becomes more “rigid” - a push to identify dependencies, the incomplete picture of the work spread across the sprints of the planning cycle, leaders focused on predictability metrics
- Dependencies on other tribes are planned in advance rather than discovered mid-sprint, with tools used to track them
- The tribe lead can say “it'll be done around X” - and be close to the truth
- The teams' capacity is visible and tracked: it's clear how much time and energy goes into maintenance, how much into development and how much into unplanned work
- External actors (other departments, e.g. marketing, compliance) have agreed SLAs, or the tribe has a strategy for the delays that come up
- Stability is measured alongside flow (e.g. change failure rate, time to restore service) - the tribe knows not only “how fast” but “how stably” it delivers
- Technical debt has protected capacity, just like unplanned work - it doesn't automatically lose out to new topics
- The tribe resolves most of the issues raised on its own, based on data - it tells one-off problems apart from systemic ones, within its own mandate for improvement
Recognise this stage in your tribe? Let's talk about what usually blocks the move to stage 4 and where to start in your case.
Transition 3 → 4
How to move to stage 4
Signal that it's time to start
The tribe delivers predictably, but the question “why are we doing this?” comes up more and more often - some work is delivered on time but brings no real value. The teams still don't fully own what they build. The question to agree on with the business leaders: “who really decides what goes into the tribe's work, and on what basis?”
Who leads
The tribe lead together with the business leaders - this transition moves some decision-making power from outside the tribe to inside it, so without them it's hard to get the mandate.
When you need someone from outside the tribe
When the right to decide on priorities formally belongs to someone outside the tribe (PMO, portfolio management) - moving that decision into the tribe requires changing the mandate at the organisational level.
First tangible result
The first documented, data-based decision of “we do A instead of B”, accepted by the organisation without escalation or dispute.
Warning sign
Every refusal of low-value work still requires a separate fight and escalation to a higher level - this means the decision about value hasn't yet been institutionalised, only forced through once thanks to one particular person's determination.
We agree the specific steps in a conversation, because they depend on your context.