Product & Engineering's Ability: Delivery Forecasting

You are known for the ability to make an estimate, establish a deadline collaboratively, and hit that mark. Not by under-promising and over-delivering... but by implementing techniques that give you data that help you have an idea of capacity planning.

AKA

• Budget-setting
• Estimation
• Promises Delivered
• Bad news, early

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability with only a small amount of guidance

You make small contributions yourself with clear directions by following existing conventions. For example:

• Working (not as the lead) with the squad to set up weekly and checkpoint goals
• Updating stakeholders on progress on our goals/estimates

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability, with no assistance as well as being a trusted active or passive mentor to others

You make major contributions yourself, fill in missing details, and impact some of those around you. For example:

• Leading the squad in identifying, evaluating, and establishing delivery goals for the coming days, weeks, months, quarters
• Leading the squad in using data to help inform decisions around what the squad is forecasting to deliver in a given time period
• Identifying the risk/likelihood of our goals/estimates/forecasts. With this risk/likelihood data, you are taking lead on bring this data to the squad and determining the course of action to getting back on track
• Thinking not just about the current week/checkpoint but looking at the future weeks/checkpoints and helping identify if we are on target to hit our goals

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to multiple squads when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability as well as being considered an expert within this discipline

You consistently make the entire team more effective in this domain. For example:

• Helping in establishing and bettering the way our team estimates and forecasts delivery work
• Identifying gaps in our existing estimation/forecasting process and works to implement solutions to any gaps we have
• Creating templates that are reusable by squads when forecasting/estimating work
• Updating/maintaining documentation on how we estimate and forecast on the Lessonly team

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can not only employ this ability but where they set the tone for this at the company level

You drive long-term technical investments that deliver ongoing value and provide solid foundations for future needs. For example:

• Defines and promotes a long-term vision for how we should strive to estimate and forecast and coordinates across the team to ensure projects are in service of it.
• Goes externally to look for ways/best practices of teams and how they estimate/forecast work and brings those learnings back to Lessonly to consider

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to not just internal teams but the community/industry in general when wielding this ability, and they are recognized by the community/industry as an expert

At this exceptional milestone, your impact is foundational to Lessonly's future or is of industry-level prominence. For example:

• Implement new Forecasting and Estimation techniques and frameworks to meet the needs of the wider community.
• Speaks at conferences/meet-ups about our Lessonly forecasting and estimation processes
• Publishes articles/posts about best practices of estimating/forecasting as a team