Do your metrics track what matters most to your organization, or do they merely quantify your adherence to a process? Is that process a good proxy for real results? In your environment? How do you know? Discover where to look for elusive, real outcomes. Join Cheryl Hammond to learn how to study indicators for your important metrics so you can recognize them when you encounter them in the wild. Understand how to monitor the health and relevance of your outcomes, and commit to the constant care needed to keep them vibrant. You'll take back a renewed appreciation for the beauty of a wild, untamed outcome and how it can motivate and focus your teams.
2. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
fantastic outcomes and
how to measure them
Cheryl Hammond
Agile Practice Leadership Enablement
she/her
chammond@pivotal.io
@bsktcase
3. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Cheryl Hammond
she/her
20+ years in software development, executive
leadership, and organizational transformation
Passionate about agile, lean, and making
software delivery humane; not afraid to look
silly doing it
Fourth-generation Seattleite
College recruiter & mentor; traveler; bolonka
lover; genealogist; feminist
4. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Invitations and asks
slideshare.net/bsktcase
Today’s slides and more
@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Tweet your feedback and questions during and after and whenever
14. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
What even is an “outcome”?
What we really want to know
Did we build the right thing?
Was the value worth the cost?
Will this gamble pay off?
Where should we invest?
And yet, we’re measuring
“Productivity”
“Predictability/reliability”
16. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Welcome changing requirements,
even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the
customer’s competitive advantage.
17. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Welcome changing requirements,
even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the
warfighter’s unfair advantage.
22. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Calibrating our “whys”
If we “why” too far
We lose our correlation to measurable proxies
Confounding variables contaminate our data
We don’t know whether we affected the outcome
If we don’t “why” far enough
We don’t correlate to actual value delivered
Every metric becomes a vanity metric
We don’t know whether we affected an outcome
23. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Zeroing in on a useful level of “why”
Benefit
Why the warfighter needs the outcome; their unfair advantage
🎯 Outcome
A problem that your product solves for the warfighter
Output
The product you create
Feature
An activity the airman can perform within your product
25. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
How outcomes (should) cascade and inform us
Vision
The WHAT and WHY
Decades +
Strategy
HOW we will REALIZE the vision
Years
Roadmap
TIMELINE and TACTICS for how
we intend to execute the strategy
Months
Backlog
The DETAILS we need to create
the product
Weeks
26. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
What often happens instead
Vision
Seems unattainable or even insincere!
Epics? Features?
Wait, where did these come from?
Warfighter focus may have been here once but
we’ve misplaced it now!
Backlog
What happened to our warfighter?
Or even our airman?
28. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Outcome-driven metrics
Identify outcomes
Follow the “whys” out until you find warfighter benefits and unfair advantages
Then work backwards to find warfighter outcomes, i.e., their problems you can solve
Build strategies and roadmaps around outcomes
Be cautious about reframing existing backlogs, as you may miss faulty assumptions
Ask, “how will we know?”
Start qualitatively; keep the focus on the warfighter
Then, and only then, ask, “how will we measure?”
Be ever-vigilant against measuring outputs instead of outcomes!
30. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Invitations and asks
slideshare.net/bsktcase
Today’s slides and more
@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
Tweet your feedback and questions during and after and whenever
31. @bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes@bsktcase #AFITC #fantasticoutcomes
fantastic outcomes and
how to measure them
Cheryl Hammond
Agile Practice Leadership Enablement
she/her
chammond@pivotal.io
@bsktcase