Predictability at Different Points in the Release Cycle

ABOUT THIS CHAPTER   Decades ago, Tom Gilb asked the question, “Do you want predictability, or do you want control?” (Gilb, 1988). With little fanfare, Agile has caused a shift in many organizations’ answer to that question. Sequential development tended to define a fixed feature set and then estimate the schedule—the focus was on predicting the schedule. Agile development tends to define a fixed schedule and then define the most valuable functionality that can be delivered in that time frame—the focus is on controlling the feature set.

Much of the Agile literature has focused on software development for markets that prioritize timeliness above predictability: consumer-oriented mobile applications, games, SaaS applications, Spotify, Netflix, ...