Nave is all about bringing awareness to the state of your delivery workflows. The sole goal that we have is to provide a level of transparency that helps managers continuously uncover what’s hindering their team performance.
We strive to give you a better understanding of how quickly you deliver results to your customers, whether you’re delivering in a consistent predictable manner, where the bottlenecks are in your system and ultimately, what is stopping you from achieving your goals.
Most importantly, we give you the tools you need to see how the trends in your performance change over time to figure out whether your improvement efforts are actually paying off.
And, I haven’t even started to talk about the principles and practices we’ve exposed to help managers lift the pressure from their teams, focus on managing work more effectively and enable autonomous systems that self-optimize for predictability.
You can have an easy and reliable approach to forecasting. You can set and manage realistic expectations with your customers and consistently meet your commitments. You can have more predictability. You can enable an environment of continuous improvement and a culture of support, motivation and engagement.
Yes, you can achieve all these results. In fact, you have everything you need to get there! You just have to stay in the loop: your maturity level will drive your next steps.
And the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model is the system that you need to understand what stage of awareness you are in right now.
So, my dear friend, where do you sit on the awareness ladder?
The 5 Stages of Awareness Towards Sustainable Predictability
Let’s explore the 5 stages of awareness in the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model, and figure out which stage you fall into.
Stage #1: Completely Unaware
Your company was founded a couple of years ago and it consists of a very small team. You don’t have that overwhelming demand that you typically see in bigger companies.
You don’t really have delivery workflows and you don’t track any data. You have no idea what probability forecasting means, you estimate your work using intuition or gut feeling. And it works for you.
If you are falling behind on deadlines, you assume this means that the team doesn’t work hard enough. You need to monitor them consistently to get the job done. If things go off track, you push them to work harder. You don’t really care that they’ll have to work long hours and over the weekend. The more they work, the better!
Well, my friend, you’re currently in Stage #1 in the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model.
Stage #2: Problem Aware
You are constantly struggling to deliver on your commitments.
Everyone is crazy busy and working overtime. Staff are unengaged, teams are overburdened, estimates are wrong, the management blames the teams for the delays.
You’re really worried about the people who work very hard and feel the pressure. And if you don’t do something, they will just burn out. And they’ll probably resign.
This is Stage #2 of the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model.
Stage #3: Solution Aware
You realize you need to start collecting and using data to make reliable data-driven decisions.
You know that you need a good reporting solution to start generating accurate delivery forecasts. You’ve tried different tools, but you just ended up stressing out the teams even more.
You realize that the problem is that you manage your teams instead of your work. You’re open to the idea of adopting flow-based analytics to shift your focus on workflow management, but you can’t speak to it. You don’t understand how to use this approach.
Welcome to Stage #3 of the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model.
Stage #4: Transformation Aware
You’re convinced that adopting Kanban and flow analytics is the best solution to achieving sustainable predictability. But is this enough?
You realize that you actually need to shift your mindset at scale, you should change your systems and improve your management practices to make this work.
But, this sounds really hard, expensive and time-consuming. What if people resist? What if the initiative fails and you end up in the same place you are today, even after all the efforts you’ve put into it? You resist.
You’re currently in Stage #4 in the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model.
Stage #5: Evolution Aware
No more speculation, guessing or making commitments based on gut feeling. You now have well-established delivery processes. You’ve managed to grow high-maturity leaders and teams.
There is a strong balance between demand and capability. You provide fit-for-purpose services by delivering results to your clients in a consistent, predictable manner.
You have all the strategies and data at your disposal to make reliable decisions. Regardless of what challenges you face, you know that your business is continuously improving and it has become a great place to work.
Your people are happy, engaged and motivated, and your customers appreciate everything you do. You’ve built credibility and reputation as professionals.
Congratulations, my friend! If you’ve managed to get to Stage #5, you’ve reached the top of the Sustainable Predictability Maturity Model!
And if by any chance, you identify yourself in any stage between Stage #1 and Stage #4, I’d be thrilled to welcome you to our Sustainable Predictability program.
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Meet the Author

Sonya Siderova is a passionate product manager and a driving force behind Nave, a Kanban analytics suite that helps teams improve their delivery speed through data-driven decision making. When she's not catering to her two little ones, you might find Sonya absorbed in a good heavyweight boxing match or behind a screen crafting a new blog post.