Mr Metrics
Say hello to Mr Metrics!
For a few years or so now I’ve had the moniker “Mr Metrics”, or the slightly more imaginative “Metrics Guy”. Whilst in reality a source of general banter I’ve never really liked the name. Wind back 15–20 years in my career when I was in an operational team, metrics were used as a stick. Sorry, you’ve not hit your 10 green ones and 5 blues ones this month so we’ll have to let you go. OK, an extreme example but a lot of us will (unfortunately) relate.
So bin off metrics right?
Definitely not! One of the core practices within an Agile delivery team is its ability to inspect and adapt, and one of the easiest ways to do this is via easily generated in-sprint metrics. You don’t have to have a fancy workflow management system like Jira the (dare I say) old fashioned post-it on whiteboard system works just fine.
Quick side note, whilst inspection and adaption is a key part of the Agile methodology this post can equally apply to any delivery method!
What should we be looking at then?
Well, that depends on where you are in your Agile journey. If you’re just starting out keep it simple and focus on your velocity and your done vs committed, I’ll talk about these in more detail in later blogs. If you’ve been ‘doing’ Agile for a while, and got a handle on your velocity I’d suggest looking at your Work In Process, Cycle Time and Wastage.
One “metric” that gets banded about a lot is productivity and you’ll notice I’ve omitted that above, I’ll explain more in future blogs 😊
And finally,
This is the first is a series of blogs about metrics and inspection and adaption and why they should be important to you. I’ll aim to post a new blog every other week and share some of my learning and where I’ve made mistakes in the hope you’ll avoid them on your own Agile journey.
