Agile Metrics and Diagnostics: Knowing When and What to Measure

Some Agile teams are still using Waterfall metrics, others aren't measuring anything at all. There's little help to be had: few hard-and-fast Agile Metrics have emerged as effective measures. This might seem surprising, but perhaps the temporary and contextual nature of agile metrics explains the emergence of a more heuristic approach.

The best teams are creating metrics on demand, in support of their goals, applying their understanding of Agile principles and values to create useful measurement tools on the fly. We propose to call these local, contextual measurement tools diagnostics to distinguish them from more long-term metrics used to measure contribution to overall organizational goals.

Since Team metrics or diagnostics are highly contextual, they need to be evaluated carefully to know if they are useful. We will present both long term metrics used by the business, and potential diagnostic measures used by the team. We will present a tool for evaluating diagnostic metrics for Agile teams, and use it to evaluate a few team metrics proposed by participants.

Since Team metrics or diagnostics are highly contextual, they need to be evaluated carefully to know if they are useful. Rather than present specific metrics, I'll talk about how to align long term metrics used by the business with diagnostic measures used by the team. I'll then present a tool for evaluating diagnostic metrics for Agile teams, and we'll use it in small groups to evaluate metrics proposed by participants.

About Deborah Hartmann

Deborah is the Agile Community Editor for InfoQ.com, and works as an Agile Process Coach in Toronto on on the east coast.

Deb is passionate about making teamwork valuable and rewarding, and has mentored colleagues and improved software teams throughout her 25-year journey from programmer to coach. She injects excitement and laughter into everything she does.

She is a visual artist, a certified Practicing Scrum Master, runs the Open Space track at XPday North America events, and provides active leadership in both international and local Agile communities.

Deb muses aloud at www.vitalbrew.com.

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