The Three Most Important Metrics For Agile Teams
June 11, 2012 by admin · 2 Comments
When I work with Agile scrum teams, I’m surprised at how often they do not rely on any performance measures (particularly when most Agile tools provide many metrics at no additional cost).
Among the various options, there are three metrics I encourage all Agile scrum teams to monitor:
1) Burndown
2) Velocity
3) Iteration (cumulative) flow
Let’s walk through each one.
1) Burn Down Chart
What is it? A burn down chart is a graphical representation of work left to do versus time. The outstanding work (measured in hours) is often on the vertical axis, with time along the horizontal. It is a run chart of outstanding work. It is useful for predicting when all of the work will be completed.
Why does it matter? One of the benefits of teams delivering via Agile is being able to consistently and routinely meet their commitments to their stakeholders, customers and other team members. A burndown enables a team to see whether they are on track (and likely to deliver on their commitments) during a sprint or iteration.