video

Escaping the Deadline Death Spiral

Published on
2 minute read

Solving Missed Deadlines and Budget Overruns in Software Projects | Martin Hinshelwood

👋 Hi, I’m Martin Hinshelwood from NKD Agility  , and in this video, I discuss one of the most common challenges organizations face: missed deadlines and budget overruns in software projects. These issues stem from the inherent unpredictability of working in complex environments. I’ll share insights on how technical leadership, engineering excellence, and modern Agile principles can help teams navigate these challenges and deliver better outcomes.

📌 Chapters:

  1. 00:00 – Introduction: The Reality of Missed Deadlines and Overruns
  2. 02:15 – Understanding Complexity and Unpredictability
  3. 05:00 – The Role of Technical Leadership in Navigating Uncertainty
  4. 08:30 – Why Engineering Excellence is Crucial for Pivoting
  5. 12:00 – Agile Principles to Address Complexity in Software Development
  6. 15:00 – Tools and Philosophies for Continuous Improvement

🎯 Who This Video is For:

  • Product managers and project managers struggling with unpredictable software projects
  • Engineering teams aiming to improve their adaptability in complex environments
  • Organizations looking to reduce budget overruns and deliver value more consistently
  • Agile practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding of technical leadership

📖 What You’ll Learn:

  • Why missed deadlines and budget overruns are common in complex projects
  • How unpredictability impacts software development and decision-making
  • The importance of fostering technical leadership and engineering excellence
  • How Agile principles like iterative development and continuous feedback mitigate risks
  • Why there’s no “one right way” in product development, and how tools like Scrum help teams adapt

💡 Key Takeaways:

  • Complex environments require adaptability, not rigid plans.
  • Technical leadership bridges the gap between ideation and execution.
  • Engineering excellence enables teams to pivot without compromising quality.
  • Agile principles provide the framework for continuous improvement and better decisions.

At NKD Agility  , we help organizations navigate the complexities of software development by fostering technical leadership, engineering excellence, and Agile practices. Ready to overcome missed deadlines and budget overruns? Visit us today to learn how we can help your team succeed.

#agile #productdevelopment #productmanagement #projectmanagement #devops #agileproductdevelopment #agileproductmanagement #agileprojectmanagement #projectmanager #productmanager #productowner #scrummaster #professionalscrumtrainer #scrum #leanproductdevelopment Watch on Youtube 

Most organisations that I encounter really suffer from missed deadlines and budget overruns for their software projects. It’s probably the most common issue that I see happening in organisations, and it can be really unpredictable. You can think that you’ve got this one in the bag, but the bag just melts, and it starts dropping out the bottom all over the street.

This is something that is a fundamental reality of the world of complexity, right? What we know is less than what we don’t know; therefore, we have a high degree of unpredictability. The things we use to mitigate that are effectively technical leadership and engineering excellence. We need our engineers to be building products that are of a high enough quality that we can pivot as needed at any moment.

We need our leadership within our organisation, who have a controlling interest in the product delivery, to have enough of an understanding of the technical realities—not just of doing the work, but of ideation and futurism. What are the possibilities for this product to enable better decisions to be made within the context of the product?

This is super hard because we like to think that there’s one right way to do something. There’s a best practice, and that’s a fallacy. We like to think that all of the awesome engineers we’ve hired just know how to solve the problem, and that can quite often be a fallacy as well.

So, we need tools and capabilities around that to help us be more effective. The principles and philosophies behind Agile and Scrum—those ideas of iterative development, continuous delivery, continuous feedback, continuous testing—pretty much anything with “continuous” in front of it in the modern software engineering space are those things that will enable us to be more effective, to make better decisions, to encourage technical leadership, and to encourage engineering excellence.

video CTO Software development Software engineering Agile Product Development Agile Product Development Product Management Agile Product Management Project Management Agile Project Management Project Manager Product Manager Product Owner Scrum Master

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