What are the best practices for Agile reporting?

Before choosing any reporting software! Ask you the next question. -What are the key metrics that you want to track or report Based on these you can choose between a lot of available software tools for this. It doesn’t need to be Jira for agile teams for example if not, adapt to clients necessities. I have done reporting in excel and they were more than happy. The simplest the better. Regards, Carlos Making People Awesome

> In my recent project, the goal we had set was to see how the team is progressing towards becoming a mature Agile team. We had set a target of Agile Maturity score of 5 points. > In my experience, always be in talks with your stakeholders, you will very well know what their needs are, in addition to Maturity. Based on that you define what areas will be covered with reporting. It could be Agile maturity, Capability maturity and so on. > One thing I found helpful was always involve your teams, in case something is going wrong. Since they're the ones that are working in the ground, more the SMs themselves, it is indeed important to ensure their Psychological safety, Happiness, etc are considered too. If possible, in the form of a survey

Agile has very little value if you look exclusively at quantitive metrics. This perpetuates a “feature factory” mindset where we are more obsessed with output than outcomes. Ultimately the goal is to deliver value, so while measures of throughput or velocity can offer useful insights into improving our ways of working, we need to ensure we also leverage metrics that are focussed on value. Adoption rate, feature usage, net promoter score, recommendations, product ratings are all focussed on user outcomes, which add value alongside events such as retrospectives to inform how we work and what we do next. Quantity means nothing if it doesn’t deliver valuable outcomes aligned with organisational goals.

I defined OKRs, which we arrived at, after closely working with my product owners, and product managers. And for each OKRs, we defined one or more KPIs that will help achieve related Objectives. Each OKR can be relevant to different dimension of what we're trying to solve for each team. And it could be different for each team. Ensure you also setup timelines by when, what OKRs can be completed, and agree with your stakeholders. Then, involve teams to help them understand the reason behind these OKRs, the related KPIs and timelines. With this approach, each KPI is a metric and should help you solve specific problem defined as objectives under the OKR. Good luck!

It is really important to use the correct tools. And the best about Agile is that, you can start with Excel as well. However, like Jira, there are tools like Rally, ServiceNow, Azure Devops which also provide project management. All of these offer best way to manage your project work. Different tools offer different interfaces but they're best in their own way and offer numerous ways to get best reports that suits basic reports and dashboards to executive boards and communication interfaces. Choose the best by doing little research However,

While it is vital to tailor information for different audiences, it’s also essential to ensure this doesn’t impact expectation management. The mantra “under promise, over deliver” often gets used in teams that adopt an agile approach. This is because agile teams recognise that there are rarely guarantees that a change to the product will deliver value to users and customers, which is one reason to discover, build, and release iteratively and incrementally. Placing many sequential small bets is better than one massive bet. Be careful that people don’t assume that a commitment is being made in relation to these small bets when one doesn’t exist, such as guaranteed growth, or guaranteed features. Don’t overcommit when working in the open.

Focus on reporting the value created – that's the essence of effective Agile reporting. Tailor your reports to what truly matters to your customers, stakeholders, and sponsors, and choose a reporting frequency that aligns with their needs. Every report should be actionable; it's not just about data, but about insights that can lead to meaningful action. Make changes! - Regularly evaluate your existing reports. Do they meet these criteria? Are they being actively used, or are they just a legacy of 'how things have always been done'? If a report isn’t contributing to informed decisions or actions, it might be time to let it go. In Agile, it's all about being lean and purposeful – if it's not serving a clear purpose, it's time to move on.

Radiate information whenever you can. If you have a roadmap make it highly visible and accessible. If you have a backlog consider making it open for others to inspect. Can people listen into your daily planning sessions or get hands on with your product on a frequent basis? Ultimately reporting on the tactical aspects of your work offers no true indication of value, so this shouldn’t be the focus of your reporting which is the benefit of making this information constantly accessible. Then your reports can focus on true value, whether that’s product adoption, usage, or sales. Report what matters most! That’s never going to be “we delivered 15 story points” or “we had 5 meetings this week” but it might just be “our users want change”.