Two teams, two time zones, one broken system.
An engineering organization at a major healthcare SaaS provider with 2 dev teams — one based in India and the other distributed across North America — was struggling with delivery. Sprint completion rates were in the 20–40% range, with some sprints dipping below 20%. The organization needed a complete reset of how they planned and executed work across time zones and cultures.
Incremental changes. Let the results speak.
Starting in mid-2022, new practices were introduced across the organization. Rather than a top-down mandate, the approach was to implement changes incrementally and let the results speak for themselves:
Steady progress. Then sustained excellence.
Progress was steady rather than instant. Within 6 months, teams were consistently hitting 70–100%+ of their sprint commitments. By mid-2023, several sprints exceeded 130% of commitment — teams had built enough predictability to pull in additional work when they finished early.
Teams went from completing barely a fifth of their sprint commitments to consistently finishing at or above 100%. By mid-2023, several sprints hit 130%+ — teams pulling in additional work because they'd built the predictability to know when they had room.
Predictable sprints led to predictable releases. Over 52 weeks, the teams executed 61 deployments with zero outages and only one rollback. When teams deliver right-sized, well-tested work, deployments stop being scary.
Over a full year of predictable delivery: 61 deployments, 0 outages, and only 1 rollback. Right-sized, well-tested work makes releases routine rather than risky.
The compounding effect was powerful. As teams became more predictable, cross-team coordination became easier.
Plan based on capacity. Scope stories properly. Hold the system accountable.
Scaling these practices across multiple distributed teams requires patience and consistency. Each team adopted at their own pace, but the framework was the same: plan based on capacity, scope stories properly, track what matters, and hold the system accountable, not the people.
The compounding effect was powerful. As teams became more predictable, cross-team coordination became easier, which further improved delivery across the organization.