Happiness Metrics

Published in

Scrum Mastery Community

12 min readNov 23, 2021

What Is Happiness Metric

Happiness Metric is one Scrum Pattern measuring how happy and engaged team members are with the environment and interpersonal relationships. The Scrum Master could pose a set of questions to the team that helps it reflect on which of the alternatives on the table will best tap into their collective passion or sense of engagement. The collected responses will be based to choose the “kaizen” that will most energise the team. The team commits (to itself) to work on that item in the next Sprint [7]. We could apply this pattern with other Scrum Patterns, such as Scrumming the Scrum Pattern (Refer to Scrumming the Scrum [8]). This pattern influences productivity, sustainability of the team’s mood and their drive to deliver value.

A typical set of happiness metric questions could be:

On a scale of 1 to (5 or 7) :

In my team, I feel fit and strong;
I am proud of the work that I do for my team;
I am enthusiastic about the work that I do for my team; and
I find the work that I do for my team of meaning and purpose [5].

On a scale of 1 to (5) :

How happy are you with being in <your team/organisation>?
How happy are you with your tasks in <your team/organisation>?
How happy are you with your current client or your bench situation?

Why Is Happiness Metric

People are social beings. Usually, individuals strive to be valued team members, expecting appreciation in return. Having this reciprocity will make the affinity of each member more positive, reinforcing that good feeling in the team. This will bring many benefits to the team, as each individual expresses their fondness towards the team and what it stands for. This, in turn, provides a boost towards the general well-being of the team and the prosperity of the organizational enterprise.

An example of a positive outcome for the progression of “happiness degree” in a team is the number of improvements. The improvements are being made constantly and incrementally. These improvement topics may not only deal with the business aspect of the professional individuals but may even extend to the holistic improvement of the persons in the team. Happier people, happier teams, just means more productivity. Based on the Journal of Labor Economics[3], happier people are about 12% more productive. This will be a positive reinforcement for the team to sustain being happy; if not, then to become even happier than individuals and as a team.

Common Impediments or Challenges

Scrum Mastery Community Scrum team jointly identified what the common impediments or challenges they had faced in applying Happiness Metric are:

Different Interpretation on “Happy”

The Scrum Team consists of people of different ages, sex, religion, ethnicity, etc., and they may have different interpretations of Happiness.

The question “How happy are you with…” can be interpreted differently, as “happy” is a very subjective state of mind. Some may interpret Happy as an OK and stable state, and some may interpret Happy as always addressing their curiosity needs to always involve in new technology. All the different interpretations will lead to different responses to these kinds of questions; this will end with comparing an apple to an orange.

Being too happy and thinking only for the short term

From a famous Danish folktale by Hans Christian Andersen, “Emperor’s New Clothes”, a not-so-direct analogy can be made where most teams focus on trivial, inappropriate facets. Some members of the team may be unsure to speak out and avoid popping the happy bubble. While some of these topics are factual, they might not be effective points, ultimately contributing to value delivery that stakeholders or customers expect. Some of them might be even detrimental to the team dynamics if left unchecked.

If the team is in “Happy Bubble”, the team performance may not be good or improve, even though the team has a high score in the happiness metric.

Team Happiness Metric is high <> Team Morale is high

Happiness Metric alone is not a direct representation of Team Morale. A team may have a high happiness score, but their morale is low because most team members didn’t feel purposely in their undertaking or proud of their deliverable.

Every team member will likely have to take on some tasks/jobs they dislike. E.g. Going the extra mile and working longer hours will bring “unhappiness”; therefore, a Happy team may not be willing to do so. However, chances for a high morale team to go the extra mile to achieve the goals are higher, making them feel fulfilled and proud of themselves.

Too many issues, all issues are urgent

After identifying the common team impediments (Refer to Scrumming the Scrum [8] for examples), the Happiness Metric Pattern can be applied to prioritise which team impediment the team should begin. “So, which impediment should we work on first?” and silence would fill the room. This can be brought about by various reasons.

Several team impediments can appear to have very similar natures, hence being classified at the same priority level. It could result in difficulty determining which should be worked on and removed first. If the team cannot determine the different impacts of these impediments, there would be difficulty in reaching an agreement on which team impediment should be considered first.

Even though the highest priority team impediment has been identified, the inherent reluctance to change could result in the rejection of potential action items that can remove the prioritised impediment. Thoughts like “How will this be implemented? What kind of repercussions could/ would result from it? What happens if we fail?” could fill the team members’ minds. There are many reasons why we are reluctant to change. These are not limited to uncertainty, lack of courage, not understanding the change, not understanding the need for the change, and avoiding disagreements and failure. These reasons leave many with the desire for a seamless/ painless transition to the solution. If the solution could result in mistakes and failures, the team might decide to remain in their happy bubble and not pop it.

Our Recommendation

With the application of Happiness Metric for incremental continuous improvement, we recommend the resolutions to the impediments faced.

Getting the team to share candidly about their scores & feelings

The starting point to identify what happiness means to the team is to understand if team members are reluctant to open up. If there exists some level of uneasiness, one-to-one talks will help understand each person’s pain points and establish trust. By creating a close door environment with no passing judgements could help. Having a safe circle would promote transparency and honesty. The goal is to raise awareness of the positive changes that could make the team feel more engaged and purposeful at work to take the following steps.

Conducting regular team building activities builds trust for teams. These could help soften the ground to finding common topics to align, bringing up complex issues, and addressing the challenges of the Happy Bubble of the team.

Happiness Metric as an input to sprint retrospective

Happiness Metric provides good inputs to Sprint Retro. It creates room for team members to clarify their responses and address the different interpretations of Happy, and avoid comparing an orange to an apple scenario.

By understanding the root causes for the low metric scored by the end of each sprint or whichever frequency the team determines, the team can craft the next actionable steps. The actionable item could be user-story related issues, such as the lack of clarity on the goal of user stories or the absence of a clear definition of ready. We recommend using this pattern with Scrumming the scrum and placing the actions into the sprint/product backlog.

Prioritising and addressing important issues in batches

When similar impediments are present, and the team has difficulty prioritising them, a facilitator can ask deeper questions. The intent is to assist the team in identifying which impediments have a more significant impact on the delivery of customer value and team engagement.

Here are some of the examples questions:

How would this decrease team velocity?
How would this affect the number of failed sprints?
How could this affect the quality of work or definition of done?

These questions encourage thinking from different perspectives, kick-start discussions on prioritising the common team impediments[2].

For teams that feel uneasy about the huge changes brought about by the actionable, incremental improvements should be applied rather than huge changes. Prioritise low-hanging, big impact improvements so that the team can view the positive impact on their morale. Get teams to commit to the actionable just as any story during the sprint planning by writing the actionable as a story with quantifiable acceptance criteria. The teams could prioritise these identified incremental improvements in the product backlog, and one can be selected to be placed in the following sprint (Refer to Scrumming the Scrum[8])

There are times when teams are comfortable with the current state of things. It is necessary to pop the happy bubble to be aware of the deficiencies present and the improvements that could be made. Sharing objective and factual data helps to reinforce the need for change. A team requires being constantly challenged to push the boundaries of their performance and to improve continuously. However, we will have to manage this carefully, as popping the bubble will likely bring high stress and animosity.

Happiness Metric shall not be the only team engagement measurement

Happiness metric pattern is used preliminary to formulate a productive team. However, this may not necessarily be true. E.g. A happy team in a happy bubble or a happy team with low morale may not be a productive team.

Therefore, Happiness Metric alone is not sufficient to understand the state of the team. We recommended including questions related to team morale and motivational factors [5].

Our Experience

Many of us had experienced and applied the concept of Happiness Metric, even before we were aware of the term “Happiness Metric”. In this section, we share some of our experiences applying the Happiness Metric. We cite some of our misfortunes as well as our celebrations. This combination of experiences brought us to both reflect on how we could do better and sustain what works.

Getting the team to share candidly about their feelings and include this as input to Sprint Retrospective

“The members were getting instructions to score it in each sprint, and those who scored low would need to have a 1–1 session with the manager to “discuss” the cause. When people approached the discussion in a confrontational manner, the team could feel discouraged to share openly. In addition to that, there were no improvement actions planned nor carried out by anyone. After a while, the team did not see the value of providing the scores and did it with high scores to avoid the 1–1 session. I believe the result would be different if the management team allowed the team to share candidly about their feelings, this would promote openness from the team. Including this as a discussion in Retro and capturing the action items in the backlog will provide transparency to the team on the plan and therefore increase their motivation to improve the team’s well-being.” — Celine

“When I took over as Scrum Master for a team, there was an air of uncertainty, as I sensed that the previous Scrum Master was well-liked by the team. Initial retrospective check-ins and discussions were lacking in candour and expression. It triggered one of my biggest fears — of not being aware of the Happiness Metric of the team.

What I did then was to send out anonymous surveys to the team to gather feedback on their happiness, on key roles like Scrum Master, and events like retrospectives.

“What is a thing that can motivate you at work?”, “How useful are retrospectives from 1 to 10?” Using the questions above, obtaining survey results and doing one-to-one sessions, I appreciated the underlying feelings and started addressing some feedback.

Having seen my earnestness try to empathise with their concerns, the team members started to open up, and trust began to form. Consequently, the Happiness Metric became reliable. The team members started giving an angry emoji or a 10 telling the team why instead of a mechanical seven (7) so they wouldn’t be asked why.

First, it is important to create a psychologically safe environment conducive enough for the team to express their views and feelings. Doing this is half the battle won in achieving the Happiness Metric.” — Aloysius

Identifying Purposeful Metrics

“When we had observed that our team’s motivation level was decreasing, we brainstormed and decided to apply Happiness Metric into Scrumming The Scrum[8].

We shared the idea with the team, and they collectively decided to identify the metric around the Scrum Values (Commitment, Courage, Openness, Respect & Focus). We observed good progress in the team — an increase in self-commitment level and a reduction in sprint failures. The team felt very happy that they received good feedback from their product owner on their deliverables.

The team found these effective and adjusted the metric according to the team dynamic. E.g., when a new team member joined the team, they would lower down the expectation to that member until the person had adapted to the team.” — Celine and Jaymie

“Initially, there was a lack of honesty when ratings were given during the session, as my team was not comfortable sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings. As a result, the Happiness Metric could not be applied properly. With the incorrect application, the team did not see why there was a need to do Happiness Metric and felt time-wasting.

After a few team lunches and getting to understand better their purpose and real thoughts and feelings about the project, the team finally opened up and started to be honest. The Happiness Metric could then be applied properly. The team provided and explained their ratings, eliciting sharing and discussions on why pace/load had to be set in a particular manner or why certain things had to be done. The “unhappiness” of developers was finally uncovered and hence discovered improvements topics of the team.” — Zhi Lin

Empathy

“During every retrospective, before I begin, I will ask for a Happiness Metrics Poll, where team members vote if they are Happy, Very Happy or Sad. Based on the results, I will ask them to discuss their feelings openly. After the retrospective is complete, I try to speak to each sad individual to help them.

By actively listening, the team members felt heard, looked after and hence stayed motivated. The staff retention rate was greatly increased after which. And the team is always open to new ideas to try to showcase the values of Scrum.

While the Happiness Metric works in a very subtle way, it plays a huge role in productivity as well.” — Jit

“I do believe that feelings play a crucial role in improving team productivity. Before the retrospective, I start by checking in with my team’s feelings. Each of the members will share their feelings and why. From here, I can decide how to facilitate the retrospective based on the outcome. It can help the team gain focus on the discussions and not be clouded by feelings.

For example, if everyone shares negative feelings about the sprint, I usually focus on “What went wrong?” and “What can we improve on?”. During this period, the team shares the problems and brainstorms ideas to improve. At the end of the retrospective, I guide them back to positive feelings by asking everyone, “What went well?”. This way can help them to feel good and motivate them to do better.

With this approach, I often see the team members focus on solving issues and be more creative. The expression of one’s feelings helps drive better discussions.” — Jeanice