The Fallacy of Agile Metrics

Q1, What metrics will you share with your customers?

Q1a, What metrics will you share with your leadership team? By seeing that metrics all other projects in your company, including internal projects should decide to switch to Agile. What metrics should show benefit to the company, not to the clients!

Ans:-

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There are two questions here!

….which are often asked in interviews

Before I say something towards the answer, let me first announce that, As per the “manifesto for Agile Software Development, for the scrum teams, the working software product always needs to be their primary measure of progress.”

The Scrum Teams need to remember that the Scrum Guide does not recommend any specific Scrum Metrics that they need to use.

The scrum team always needs to understand that the empirical testimony of their overall progress can only be uncovered through their capability of iterative development and delivery of high-quality working software.

Now I am coming down to Metrics, Please mind my words,?of course by making use of some applicable and appropriate metrics the overall productivity & performance of the Scrum Team can be assessed.

The outcomes of their performance and collaborative efforts through these Metrics can certainly help the scrum team to improve their Scrum-based agile way of working! Here I answer the last part of the second Question, i.e. unless you adopt Agile you can’t have these metrics handy, either you switch to Agile fully or on a trial basis.

I am saying this at first because, these AGILE Metrics allow the SCRUM team to measure, track, enhance and improve their overall performance to make the existing people, products,s and processes better and safer.

Unless you have a feel of AGILE wholly, the leaders or the stakeholders sitting out there cannot connect to the goals & objectives, if they just cherry-pick one of the metrics and demand to showcase.

Let me say it loud and clear, Agile metrics are purely based on parameters such as quantification of time, effort, cost, work in progress, calibration of delivered outcomes and?

many more other aspects. Unless you adopt Agile (within Quotes) you cannot have a practical control over these.

Or else it will be just a scenario like five blindfolded persons (normally the leaders or stakeholders) having a concussion while determining what an Elephant looks like!

Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

Then the wise king explains to them:?All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is that each one of you touched a different part of the elephant. So, actually, the elephant has all the features you mentioned.

So that will happen, and the blindfold is nothing but the thought process,

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Agile metrics are not USPs for Agile to be sold !

Agile metrics are not marketing stunts for Agile !

Agile metrics are not punch lines for Agile as a Brand to be promoted !

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These are information radiators a coherent part of agile, so here I am coming down to the question Q2a, What metrics will you share with your leadership team? By seeing that metrics all other projects in your company, including internal projects should decide to switch to Agile.

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I am just drawing an analogy

Say you heard about The derby race from someone, the other person said that some animals run the race and people bet on them and gamble, etc and you eventually developed a desire to win in Derby, and you are very rich, you applied your thought process and bought an African Tusker from say Kenya or South Africa. Now, this animal is the largest, strongest & mightiest animal in the world. You know it and everyone else know it?

??Then you have your animal trainers ( ……or you hired a few ) as you are filthy rich and you instructed your animal trainers that train the tusker to run, explained to them as because it is the strongest it would run faster.???????

But the irony is, to be in Derby or say to win in Derby the animal which you need to tame is a “RACE-HORSE”, not a Tusker.???????

And the Race Horse does not have to prove itself with evidence that I Run, it is the coherent nature of the animal. So is Agile

?This is to all my friends out there who are preparing for interviews, please remember “There are very old school beliefs that are ingrained in managers, leaders and the league is large” that does not signify you have to always give an answer which will bring a calming effect within them, No.

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Now coming to the first Question:-

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“Q1, what metrics will you share with your customers?”

A continuous assessment of various aspects such as value, productivity, predictability, stability quality, collaboration and competence, and so on needs to be considered by the scrum teams while defining and establishing their required Scrum Metrics.

Before I go down to the list of Metrics to be given to customers, few words on Stake holder’s metrics .

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“ Most of the time the stakeholders are not having a proper interpretation of realizing the tangible and actual value of the working software product, in terms of its work items getting developed, meeting DoD. They just want to see the Scrum Metrics in terms of some worthless statistics.

It is important for the Scrum Team and the SM to educate and persuade the stakeholders, which Scrum metrics can be used, but the focus always needs to be on the above aspects shown in the chart. So please avoid meaningless metrics or vanity metrics. “

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When examining a metric, you as a scrum master should consider the following questions:

1.????Can it be accurately quantified?

2.????Does it connect to goals and objectives?

3.????Is it absolute and incorruptible (i.e., it cannot be gamed)?

4.????Are we able to act on this metric?

5.????Will this metric be relevant in the future?

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If you can safely answer “yes” to a majority of these questions, then it’s a good sign that the metrics are worth measuring and could potentially yield transformative results.

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?It’s equally important for the Scrum Master to filter out the metrics that fail to deliver actual value.

1.????Outdated metrics that haven’t kept pace with your organization’s business goals

2.????Competitive metrics that foster unhealthy rivalries

3.????Short-sighted vanity metrics

4.????Unattainable metrics that foster a sense of helplessness and defeatism

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For Scrum Masters, characteristics of meaningful metrics: -

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I.????????????????Actionable – Simply put, metrics should be able to drive a decision, they should help us decide to go one way or other

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II.??????????????Accessible – It must be easily accessible as possible so that everyone in the organisation can leverage them, which reflects one of the pillars of the scrum, i.e. Transparency. Scrum masters, make it a priority to ensure that metrics are highly visible to everyone in the organisation so all members can learn the information and understand how it affects their part of the world.

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III.?????????????Auditable – Metrics are often controversial. The best way to ensure this is to collect the data automatically, with little or no manual intervention.

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So after this detailed discussion, we can say that there is no mentioned list of metrices for internal stakeholders. The team can always have a dispensation from it, as such it’s the team’s and Scrum Master’s prerogative to sit and discuss with the stake holders and reach a consensus what is needed.

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“ Failing to reach consensus and buy-in on metrices is the reason why so many Agile Programmes Fail !!!

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Now, lets zero down to customers ;

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The EBM (Evidence Based Management) framework developed and sustained by Ken Schwaber insists the Scrum Teams to concentrate on improvement of customer value driven outcomes and minimisation of risks. The EBM Framework asks the Scrum Teams to look at four key value areas for which they can create some proper measures to have correct investments, smoother decision making and risk reduction for the purpose of an improved iterative development of working software

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The four KVAs are :-

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I.????????????????Current Value – It asks the Scrum Teams to measure the value which they have delivered to their customer or end-user as of today

II.????????????????Unrealized Value – It asks the scrum teams to measure the value that could be realized by meeting all the potential needs of their customer

III.??????????????Ability to innovate – It asks the Teams to measure their ability to deliver a new capability, which might better serve the customer’s needs

IV.?????????????Time to Market – It asks the scrum Teams to measure their ability to quickly deliver new capability , service , or product to their customer or end user.

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Considering the above four KVA (Key Value Areas) the following are sample measurements that can be explored and evaluated by the scrum teams as metrics-

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consolidated by

Nilaap Raj Mittra

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