{"id":3140,"date":"2021-04-15T13:59:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T12:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2026-10-01T08:55:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:55:32","slug":"probabilistic-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/probabilistic-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Develop a Probabilistic Mindset to Enable Reliable Delivery Commitments"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Developing a probabilistic mindset is the ultimate secret to managing risks effectively and making reliable delivery commitments. Making probabilistic forecasts helps us maintain high levels of customer and stakeholder trust, satisfaction and retention. It also allows us to define service level agreements with more confidence and to deliver value to our customers in a consistent, predictable manner.<\/p>\n

Every morning I drive my kids to school. It\u2019s not really a school though; my kids are still 4 and 6. It\u2019s like a kindergarten within the same building as the primary school. They have the standard bell rings to give the day structure and alternating classes with generous breaks in between. Of course, they get to play all the time (what a life), but it feels like school. I find it great because it means that when my kids start first grade, the whole experience will be much smoother.<\/p>\n

The first class starts at 8:45. If you\u2019re not there on time, the main doors close and you can\u2019t get in anymore. As such, it is crucial for me to get there before 8:45, otherwise, I have to look after two little kids for the whole day, while trying to stay productive at work (spoiler alert: the latter is never successful).<\/p>\n

Even though our school is pretty close – it\u2019s located about 10 km away from our house – it can take anything from 10 to 40 mins to get there – it depends on whether there is construction work, a local street market or simply no suitable place to park. I didn\u2019t make it once because of a major car incident and the traffic was horrible.<\/p>\n

My point is, I never know exactly<\/em><\/strong> how long it will take to reach my destination. The outcome will often be different and the only thing I can do to achieve my goal is to make sure I leave home early enough to have higher confidence that I will arrive on time.<\/p>\n

You can never have a 100% certainty about what will happen in the future. There are always multiple scenarios that may occur. There is no model that produces a single certain outcome that guarantees you will achieve your goal.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Flaw of Deterministic Estimations<\/h2>\n

The exact same principle applies when it comes to making delivery commitments. Traditional deterministic thinking has instilled deep roots in our mindsets. We have been committing to single certain delivery dates for so long. Being uncertain feels very uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem with deterministic estimations is that we assume we know what will happen in the future with a 100% certainty upfront<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0It is effectively a waterfall approach to estimating. 100% certainty for the future does not exist in our world. Alas, no one has invented the magic crystal ball just yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Knowledge work flows through a discovery process<\/a>. We become more certain as time passes and we gather new information. We can only be 100% sure when we will deliver something at the moment we deliver it.<\/p>\n

What Does It Really Mean to Have a Probabilistic Mindset?<\/h2>\n

So how can we make reliable delivery predictions when there is so much uncertainty that we have to deal with? The secret is to accept that uncertainty and manage it effectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even looking into the delivery time of a single story, it can get done in 4 days but it can also get done in 44 days. There is so much variability in the delivery time of an item you need to consider – the effort to complete the work, the coordination time within the team, any issues that may occur during development, blockers, bottlenecks in the system, additional work coming in between. The list goes on.<\/p>\n

Having a probabilistic mindset, generally speaking, means accepting that there is more than one possible result that may happen in the future.<\/strong> To provide a reliable delivery commitment, you need to communicate a range of delivery dates and the probabilities that come with each of them.<\/p>\n

Remember, the main purpose of making estimations is to manage risks effectively. There’s always risk involved and the most effective approach to managing realistic expectations is to quantify that risk by assessing the probability of achieving your goals. Every delivery prediction should communicate the risk associated with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every time when you provide a delivery commitment, ask yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s the chance of meeting that commitment\u201d? If the approach you use to make delivery predictions doesn\u2019t enable you to quantify that probability, it\u2019s worth considering an alternative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Probabilistic Forecasting and Monte Carlo Simulations<\/h2>\n

Developing a probabilistic mindset is the first step towards providing a confident answer to the question \u201cWhen will this be done?\u201d. And it might be a challenging question if you don\u2019t have the means to give a reliable answer.<\/p>\n