10 capabilities driving delivery predictability according to McKinsey

Agile funding, product management, and iterative controls are top capabilities driving effectiveness.

Organisations achieve better overall outcomes when they deploy advanced agile capabilities, but significant room for improvement remains, according to a McKinsey report. 

The analysis, which drew on data from over 1,700 teams across 75 organisations, examined how capabilities in areas like strategy, structure, people, process, and technology affect four key outcomes, namely effectiveness, speed, productivity, and quality.

Agile funding, product management, and iterative controls such as secure-by-design protocols emerged as the top capabilities driving effectiveness across multiple dimensions. Delivery predictability, a critical metric for assessing whether teams meet their commitments and improve performance, stood out as particularly important. 

McKinsey identified ten capabilities essential for driving delivery predictability, with organisational processes having the greatest influence.

Automated risk, compliance, and audit controls, combined with self-provisioning environments, reduce delivery delays and enhance predictability. For instance, when engineering teams use an efficient tech stack, they eliminate dependencies on separate operations teams to provision servers manually. 

Similarly, embedding policy controls into code minimises the need for multiple support functions, streamlining delivery, McKinsey added.

Dedicated team members, fully allocated to their tasks without external dependencies, enhance prioritisation and focus. This allocation enables teams to deliver work consistently, improving both velocity and throughput, the report said.

Regular sprint demos and a culture of self-improvement further foster timely feedback and faster iteration. These practices also instill accountability, as stakeholders—including leadership and customers—can track progress and deliverables in real time.

The report emphasised that business value should be the primary metric for product development decisions. McKinsey found that technology factors significantly influence value realisation, defined as the proportion of committed business value delivered. 

Organisations adopting agile funding—shifting budget allocations from projects to products—tend to close the gap between commitment and delivery. This approach prioritises fixed-capacity teams and measurable business outcomes over traditional constraints like budget and time.

Agile funding also allows business leaders to reallocate resources dynamically in response to evolving market and customer demands. By making planning and budgeting decisions at the product level, McKinsey said teams can better adapt to changing conditions, ensuring they deliver maximum value.

Cross-functional team models are increasingly popular, but many organisations underinvest in product management, McKinsey noted. Whilst companies often fill the product owner role, they do not always select individuals with the appropriate skills. 

McKinsey said effective product managers act as business leaders, possessing both strategic and technical expertise. They guide multiple product teams, define requirements, and ensure high-quality delivery, often partnering with an engineering or technology lead in a "two-in-a-box" model.

Employee satisfaction, a critical driver of organisational benefits such as retention, alignment, and commitment, depends on the capabilities that foster engagement. Recognising individual expertise, offering clear career progression paths, and basing promotions on capabilities enhance employee satisfaction. 

Standardising and reducing the number of roles also improves team capacity and creates a balanced ratio of leaders to contributors, empowering individuals and boosting transparency.

The report highlighted the need for organisations to refine their agile practices, particularly by focusing on capabilities that enhance predictability, value realisation, and employee engagement. 

As agile methodologies continue to evolve, organisations that effectively integrate these principles will be better positioned to deliver superior outcomes and respond dynamically to changing market conditions.