How do you monitor and report the performance of your scrum team?

An agreed, negotiable sprint goal provides the team with focus, and should deliver value. It is important to keep in mind that the goal is the objective, not necessarily the tickets in the sprint backlog, which are the developers' plan and should be adapted during the sprint. Burn up and burn down charts can have their uses, but come with the risk that the team - and indeed stakeholders - focus on ticking off tickets instead of working towards the goal. This may have the consequence of stifling innovation and adaptability, and compromise the value of the increment.

Effective planning contributes to achieving positive outcomes. Therefore, having well-defined, realistic, and attainable sprint goals, along with a buffer to accommodate potential changes, keeps the entire team aligned and focused on essential tasks. Utilizing burn-down charts to pinpoint areas for enhancement is also beneficial. Recognizing these indicators for necessary improvements and having the agility to adjust to changes undoubtedly defines a great Scrum team.

In an agile environment, measuring and communicating the performance of your scrum team is essential to ensure that value is consistently delivered to customers and stakeholders in each sprint. It can be achieved by: 1. Define Clear Objectives and Metrics 2. Regularly Review and Reflect 3. Visible Information Radiators such as task boards, burn-down charts, and cumulative flow diagrams 4. Frequent Communication 5. Establish feedback loops with customers and stakeholders to gather insights on the delivered product increment

Implementing sprint goals and burndown charts in real-world teams can be challenging due to factors like varying human behavior, unforeseen issues, changing priorities, and external dependencies. Effective communication, accurate estimation, and adaptation are key. We must remember these tools are guides for continuous improvement, not rigid rules.

For reporting, I would like to use Sprint goals and Burndown charts. For monitoring, daily stand up calls (assuming I am following Scrum) are a great place to hear from all stakeholders about how things are going on their end, whether there are any impediments coming up their way and whether they are comfortable meeting the sprint goals. Quality aspects like TDD, unit test automation, how frequently code review is getting done within the team, whether team is doing pair/mob programming, whether team is following other best practices laid down by the organization etc. Team health and happiness is also of primary importance, formal/informal talks with the team members to understand this is of prime importance to me.

Use flow efficiency metrics - Lead and Cycle time to understand how the teams are faring and focus on where the waste lies. However this needs an efficient Development Value stream implemented. Lean Quality processes need to defined, established and implemented. Automation is key as well. Please don’t track velocity per developer or per team as these are counter productive.

Story points are not comparable across teams, because the value of a story point is subjective and not quantitative. Some teams might not even use story points, they are not a requirement of Scrum. Measuring productivity on velocity can result in a team focussing on delivering as many story points as possible, instead of the goal. Throughput is also flawed because it prioritises speed over quality. Velocity and throughput may be used as an empirical tool to help with forecasting, and (along with other metrics) may help identify impediments and constraints.

Velocity and throughout are “output” metrics. They do not measure productivity, only busyness. However, they can still be useful. E.g. when the team experiments with improvements and wants to see the effect on output. A stable velocity/throughout can be a good sign for the predictability of a team. Stable velocity allows more reliable longer term projections. However, one shouldn’t get obsessed with overly precise predictions. Generally, velocity and throughout are not outcome metrics. They shouldn’t be used to measure value or productivity.

To monitor performance of the team i would recommend below things : 1 . In daily stand up , let each person talk about what is their challenge and how it will impact their deliverable 2. Scrum master should try to understand the issues and give relevant feedback or suggestions to resolve them and ask another team member to partner to resolve the issue 3. if still the issue is not resolved in a day or two start publishing this challenge as a show stopper in your reports and seek support from other groups who has insights into this issue Hope this helps

Throughput can be easily gamed, by simply breaking out work into more work items. Velocity can be gamed the same way and Scrum almost encourages it in the name of "flow". The same work gets done but with more refinement overhead. The gain was merely "on paper" along with being able to "fit more into a Sprint". This is how we make it look like "twice as much work was done in half the time" - while basically not improving either real output or real quality. (Arguably those likely went down because of loss of focus on what matters...) Try probabilistic analysis. Sharpen the quality and frequency of feedback loops. Raise the level of the water instead of looking to remove rocks (impedments).

Similar to Mike Lyons comment about velocity, these also should not be considered performance metrics. If these are used as performance metrics, engineers will be forced into gamification. Quality metrics can include the number of defects (is it a defect or enhancement), the defect resolution time (who sets priorities of work), the code coverage (a misleading metric with value that leads to false confidence), the technical debt (not mutually inclusive to quality), or the test automation (not sure what metrics are referred to here, but consider how doubt (almost) always falls on the test automation first when tests fail and not the system under test). These metrics do nothing deterministic to reinforce the reliability or usability.

Question: Do you think the customer cares about the time it takes to fix a defect in code that has nothing to do with their interaction with the product? or that the product does what it is supposed to do easily, seamlessly and without fuss? Customer satisfaction is the main consideration of our efforts but not the in this example way it is being measured in this example.

I would always rate the quality and customer satisfaction as the topmost priority. However, it doesn't mean we focus on the quantitative analysis of defect density, defects reported etc. It's basically about did we provide the right solution to resolve the issues of the users. In addition to this, is our system performing well without major problems, are the functionalities and user journey improved. Also, another point would be the feedbacks we receive from customer.

Quality and customer satisfaction are pivotal in project success. Quality assures that the product meets standards, encompassing reliability, security, and performance. Customer satisfaction gauges how well the product meets user needs. High quality often leads to customer contentment. Regular feedback, communication, and addressing concerns contribute to satisfaction. Emphasizing both ensures a valuable, user-centric product, fostering project and business triumph

(1) Quality Metrics: Agile teams often track quality metrics such as defect rates, code coverage, and automated test results. These metrics provide insights into the overall health of the project and the team's ability to deliver a quality product. (2) Stakeholder Engagement: Keeping stakeholders informed and engaged through regular updates, demos, and open communication channels helps maintain transparency and manage expectations.

“Finally, you want to monitor and report the team health and happiness of your scrum team.” This line feels disconcerting, reporting happiness. The tools listed are useful, yet they are common in transformation where teams are like, let’s get through this survey… also retrospectives shouldnt have details reported out (by default). The experiment might be shared, but usually retros are by the team, for the team. Be it retro, surveys, etc if people are compelled to participate and if the details are reported, psychological safety may be an issue with the intent of this section. This is a theme in this article of not understanding team internal tools, exposing or opening to external, breaking the tool’s purpose. Just recommending caution.

Team health is an important indicator for the team but not in the way you might think. A burnt out team is an indicator that the system supporting the team is wrong.

Team health and happiness is crucial for a good long run. Only healthy teams can deliver sustainable success. This is a very tricky thing to actually check and retrospect. There should be more team activities to engage people with each other. There should be a way to monitor and respond on timely basis.

Team health and happiness are integral to project success. A healthy team collaborates well, communicates openly, and reflects on processes. Clear roles and responsibilities foster ownership. Happiness stems from a supportive environment, skill development, and work-life balance. Both aspects boost motivation, creativity, and productivity. Team satisfaction aids talent retention and resilience in overcoming challenges. Prioritizing team well-being contributes to a positive work environment and enhances project outcomes.

Continuous Improvement: Agile emphasizes inspecting and adapting. The team should regularly assess their performance and processes, making adjustments based on the insights gained from various monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

I actually really like the approach that SAFe’s updated Measure and Grow guidance suggests. Specifically: The three measurement domains are defined as follows: Outcomes: Do our solutions meet the needs of our customers and the business? Flow: How efficient is the organization at delivering value to the customer? Competency: How proficient is the organization in the practices that enable business agility? © Scaled Agile, Inc. Regardless of your thoughts on SAFe, or even if you are using it, these are excellent areas to consider when thinking about agile metrics. Learn more at scaledagileframework

Remember that the goal of monitoring and reporting within Agile methodologies is not to micromanage the team, but to facilitate transparency, collaboration, and a culture of continuous improvement. It's important to find a balance between tracking progress and allowing the team the autonomy to self-organize and deliver value.

Better programmers are better performers. Deliberate involvement in making sure "Technical Debt" is reduced from the beginning of the sprint and should be mindful of the quality of the code right from the beginning in shift left is an amazing metric to measure the performance .

Are the teams chasing value or metrics? Imposing metrics that effect teams lead to the metrics taking priority over the value delivery. Metrics have value, but must not become the goal. Metrics also should be understood as measuring vs evaluating. Sometimes evaluating is possible and useful. Where most agile practitioners pushing performance metrics fail to understand is they are still based on “following a plan”, meaning teams must do non-agile practices to align, yet if the work is an agile use case, now teams are being held to upfront forecasts in emergent work and measured on their happiness. Changing requires data and justifications (detracting from work time). This feels toxic. Profits, attrition, & customer satisfaction discussed?

Considering Jira Software Application for Scrum, Below can prove efficient to track performance of project & team. Jira Dashboards | Build according to our needs | Metrics can be tracked using Jira filters, Gadgets & dashboard metrics. Created vs Resolved | Status wise metrics | Days Remaining in Sprint | Filter Results | Resolution Time | Road Map | Sprint Health | Customizable Pie charts | Effort Log | 2D filter result set | Gannt gives us more insights on projects progress. Using SAFe for multiple projects, bringing them on a single screen & adding hierarchy as below would provide excellent detail. 1. Project 2. Version / Release 3. Sprint 4. Epic 5. Story 6. Child task Progress is tracked from Cumulative to individual level.