The Blackjack Metric
Learn how to detect if your developers are consistently blocked or distracted.
When playing blackjack, a betting card game, players can gain an advantage by trying to track which cards have been dealt already. The casino, or house, on the other hand usually use multiple decks to prevent the player from having too much knowledge. The goal of counting cards in blackjack is not to memorize the cards, but instead assign a value to know your overall standing.
In the simplest form of blackjack card counting, there are 3 possible values assigned to cards: (-1) when something bad happens; (0) when something neutral happens; (+1) when something good happens. You’ll evaluate each other players hand and determine what the “running count” is, what the overall status of the game is.
So how does this apply to your daily stand-up? Usually in the morning meeting there are three questions asked, but we’ll focus on two: what do I plan to accomplish today? and what did I accomplish yesterday?.
Together, they make a bet and a result. Today, developers bet on accomplishing certain tasks and then go to do it. We can summarize the outcome of this bet using our blackjack metric: -1, if any tasks uncompleted; 0, if all tasks completed; +1, if extra tasks completed.
So how does the language change? Instead of saying “Yesterday, I planned to work on the authentication system and complete the reset password flow and I did that.” I might instead say “I’m at 0. I worked on the authentication system and completed the reset password flow.” By stating upfront what the outcome was, you are allowing listeners to better comprehend the following information.
This might seem like it’s not too helpful, but the real value comes for project managers or scrum masters. By recording the metric at a developer level each day, you can determine if someone is consistently being blocked or distracted.
You might be tempted to use this metric to determine the overall project schedule. Don’t do that!
There are some downsides. Just like any other metric, it can be gamed. Developers might plan to accomplish less so that their metric is always positive. Additionally, you might be tempted to use this metric to determine the overall project schedule. Don’t do that! Since the metric is limited to only three values, there is no weight assigned to unfinished or extra tasks. If a developer finished an extra card worth 1 story point (blackjack +1), and the next day is behind by 10 story points (blackjack -1), the running count for that developer is 0 but your project is actually behind. You might also be tempted to tally a count for the team as a whole. This will again lead you down a false path of security.
In summary, using a blackjack metric can help you determine if developers are being regularly blocked or distracted. Please explore my other stories here. If you’ve liked this, please hit the 👏 or follow. Thanks!
