How To Deliver Software Without Deadlines

Let’s talk about how we deliver software when it’s ready, instead of when it’s due.

A few weeks ago, I dropped what I know about Dateless Delivery on you. It’s a process born out of Agile in which a technical product is only delivered to market when the technology is done. The rest of the organization moves forward with the tech instead of backward from a previously selected, and often times arbitrary, delivery date.

As you might expect, there were diametrically opposed opinions on that post, and I’m thankful for all of them. There were those who cheered what couldn’t be a more obvious way to build a better product, and there were those who called me an Agile zealot and asked me how the view was from Fantasyland.

I’m actually more of a Tomorrowland guy, but whatever.

I won’t rehash the arguments here, that’s the old post. However, more than one person questioned how Dateless Delivery might work.

That’s this post. And it’s not rocket science.

But You’re Playing With Fire

First of all. I’ll say it again as I did twice in the original post. Dateless Delivery is not fully baked yet. While there are teams out there practicing it, they’re usually on the innovation end of the tech, not the core.