Are you still relying on the old standbys like percent complete, velocity, and burndown for monitoring the progress of your teams or projects? Those metrics may not be telling you what you think they are! In this fast-paced discussion, we'll talk about some of the pitfalls of commonly used metrics, and make the case for not so commonly used measures that give you the insights that you're really striving for. You will learn: Understand the connection between what you measure, your team performance, and product quality Explanation of how many commonly used metrics will fail to tell you what you really need to know Familiarity with uncommonly used metrics that will more reliably tell you how well your project or team are really doing

1. VST09 Fast Focus: Rethinking Team Metrics in
20-Minutes
Angela Dugan
Delivery Director and Agile Guide,
3Cloud Solutions
Level: Intermediate

2. © Polaris LLC. All rights reserved. Disclosure is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document.
Angela Dugan
Delivery Director, Agile Practice Manager, Team Coach
Values = Connection | Generosity | Trust
Passion = Helping humans be the best they can be
Location = Chicago
Quirks = Obsessed with Halloween, raises chickens!
Email = adugan@3CloudSolutions.com
URL = https://3cloudsolutions.com
Twitter = @OakParkGirl

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4. A metric is a quantification that can be used to
narrow in on something we could change,
determine if we are adding value, and/or test
hypotheses.
Agile metrics serve as a compass to keep teams
on track and enable data-driven conversations
about ROI, value, and Agile maturity.
No single metric is a flawless and unbiased
representation of team productivity, software
quality, or delivered value.

5. The usual suspects
Velocity
Burndown
% complete
Releases per <insert arbitrary time period>
Stories released/Features Delivered

6. In a vacuum
Unhealthy comparing of individuals and teams
A culture of “busy” where WIP is high and morale
is low
Confusion and frustration
Math WIZARDS who can make every target, every
time

7. Know Your Audiences
Individuals and teams delivering the software
Team leadership
Executive leadership

8. BEFORE you use a metric
Who is the target audience?
How will your audience use the metric?
What do you believe this metric is telling the intended audience?
What are the outcome you’re hoping to achieve? Can the
metrics inform that?
What are the behaviours you’re trying to drive? How can you
connect that to the metrics you’re collecting?
How can your metrics be misleading, or provide perverse
incentives?
What complementary metrics can provide additional context?

9. Team Metrics
Should help the team understand how capable they are at
understanding problems and designing realistic solutions
Should help the team learn how to execute better based on
the outcomes resulting from their experiments
Should help teams pinpoint bottlenecks and weak points in
the areas where they can make changes
Provide near immediate feedback that supports the team in
setting and managing realistic expectations

10. Team Leadership Metrics
Should help a team’s leaders understand how much value is
being delivered by the team
Should help the leader keep on top of cross team
dependencies and risks to larger efforts
Should help team leadership keep a finger on the pulse of the
team in terms of morale, and happiness
Should help the team’s leader understand if things have gone
off the rails and a major commitment is in jeopardy – before
it’s too late

11. Executive leadership Metrics
Should help them understand where investments are being
made across the portfolio
Should help them understand if a given initiative or project
is going as planned
Should tell them how satisfied their customers are with the
product or solution being delivered
Should help them understand how healthy their
organisational culture is

12. AFTER some time
Did you have the appropriate metrics for your audience?
Did your audience get value/learning from what they saw?
Did the metric tell you what you thought it would?
Did it help you measure outcomes? Or did it focus on outputs?
Did it foster the behaviours you were trying to encourage? Or
was it misleading, possibly causing unintended outcomes?
Did you have proper context, or were you looking at metrics in a
vacuum?
Is this metric appropriate for the current audience?

13. The question
almost no one
asks
Should we even / still be collecting
this metric?

14. Metrics Principals
1. The right metrics for the right audience
2. Metrics are never viewed in a vacuum,
they’re always surrounded by conversation
3. You get what you measure, so make sure
you’re measuring what you want more of
4. Metrics should be treated as a critical part of
experimentation and learning

15. Consider this
Instead of teams focusing on just their
velocity and burndown
Consider adding story/requirements churn,
escaped defects, sprint goal success rate
Instead of team leadership only monitoring
productivity and released code
Consider also looking at team engagement,
impediment age, and release burndown
Instead of executives monitoring team level
metrics
Share epic burndown or burnup, Net
Promoter Score, and organisational
engagement metrics

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© Polaris LLC. All rights reserved. Disclosure is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document.
BONUS: The Little Book of Agile Metrics
The Little Book of Agile Metrics
In our FREE guide, learn how to use Agile
to transform the way your teams work.
• Know what common metrics are
actually telling you
• Learn how to interpret the changes
and trends in your agile metrics
• Discover new metrics you did not
even know you needed to be looking
at!
It will link to the Polaris website, don’t worry you’ll still get the book!
OR reach out directly at adugan@3cloudsolutions.com

17. © Polaris LLC. All rights reserved. Disclosure is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document.
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19. November 16, 2021
Thank you!
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