Do You Really Need Predictability?

Well, let’s look at this question from a slightly different perspective.

Did you know that Serena Williams earned her first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open in 1999 and won a string of five Grand Slam singles title wins: the 2002 French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open titles and the 2003 Australian Open and her second Wimbledon title in 2003, all by defeating her older sister Venus in the finals.

To date, she has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most of any player in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time.

And if you’ve watched any of her documentaries, you’ll know that even though Serena Williams is one of the greatest female tennis players of all time, she still shows up for a training session every day striving to improve her game.

She brings her A-game every single time with the fundamental belief that she can keep getting better. And this is one of the top key qualities that sports legends have in common. It is their constant willingness to improve. One small step at a time, every single time. This is not just a habit, it’s a lifestyle.

The fact is that the principles and practices that enable you to achieve sustainable predictability are the exact same principles and practices that lead to tremendous improvement in your delivery workflows.

No matter how skilled or productive you and your teams are, there’s always, and I mean always, a possibility to do things better than before.

Strive to identify improvement opportunities in every activity you do. Get the data-driven insights and take action. One small step at a time.

And even if you don’t care about predictability, I really hope that you at least care about continuous improvement.

If you just focus on getting 1% better in improving the way you manage your work each day, you’ll eventually reach a certain point where you’ll not only achieve sustainable predictability but also have set up a system that self-optimizes for better business outcomes. And that’s a goal worth striving for.