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.

The methodology is still mostly custom, meaning it gets done differently from company to company. It’s also still a startup thing, and I don’t expect larger companies to be flipping to Dateless. Yet.

But it is coming. I’m integrating it piece by piece today, trying to turn a custom delivery process into a standard delivery process. This isn’t the invention of fire, I’m not trying to publish the next Shopify methodology here, this is just how I’m transitioning from promising and missing dates to delivering continuous innovation, both across my org and to my customers.

Dateless Delivery Doesn’t Mean No Dates

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s clear up what I believe is a general misconception based on some of the feedback I got: That Dateless Delivery immediately begets a total lack of developer accountability.