Expectations change how the same experience feels.
More quotesTwo delivery teams both report 96 per cent on time.
Team A promises two hours and usually arrives in ninety minutes. Team B promises “sometime today” and usually arrives in six hours. Both appear green on the dashboard. The customer waiting at home experiences the difference omitted by the metric.
Buffers are ordinary planning. Traffic varies. Testing uncovers defects. Humans become ill and occasionally disappear on holiday despite the project plan. Include that uncertainty in the promise. The trick becomes grubby when the organisation widens the target, celebrates the improved score and leaves the actual experience untouched.
The operational review therefore keeps three columns: promise, actual duration and customer cost. It also records the range, because an average can conceal disasters. Reviewers put a call answered in thirty seconds beside the repeat contact caused by ending it early. They record a parcel delivered within its twelve-hour window beside the day the customer surrendered to receive it.
Team B narrows its window to four hours. Its “on-time” result falls to 83 per cent. During the same month, missed deliveries and complaint calls fall as well. One executive wants the old green number back.
Nobody announces an early arrival. The next review begins with the red 83 and the lower customer cost. Finance asks which result counts as improvement. The team has yet to decide where that argument appears on the dashboard.