Agility cannot be measured. I hear a lot from the waterfall development fans.
We politely disagree. It is true that waterfalls provide a good indicator of benchmarks, such as progress versus spending versus budget and schedule. However, in most cases, the development of waterfalls is too difficult given the constantly changing market and technology as it is today.
For this reason, DMI generally recommends an agile approach to software development that enables rapid value creation in ways that waterfalls cannot normally provide. However, we must admit that we shared the complaints of developers who asked for useful data on agile performance.
For this reason, we have developed Agile Performance IndeX (APIX), which allows administrators to quantify and evaluate multiple benchmarks to track the success of the Agile project. The number is slightly softer than the waterfall project. However, applying it to the priority list of the items you want to measure the most can be very effective.
We prioritized the measurement target with Agile Index as follows: Value> Quality> Progress> Productivity
Understanding and implementing these priorities requires fundamental changes in perspective. Below is a brief overview of our thoughts on these priorities.
Why value is a priority:
Agile methods have been developed to enable rapid value creation. Create a minimum viable product (MVP) as soon as possible so you can add value, such as sales, market share, other business priorities, or a combination of these factors. Then use short development iterations and frequent customer feedback to further improve your product. Therefore, attempts to measure the performance of agile projects should make building value a top priority.
Why Progress is Second:
Quality refers to MVP's ability to provide the most important features and least errors. The quality should be lower than the value, as we have to provide the MVP in a reasonable time at a reasonable cost. In addition, it is necessary to reduce the risk of failure or delay. High cost, long time, and overlooked risk affect value, and total delay cost increases exponentially over time. Therefore, when quantifying value and measuring quality for the first time in the context of value indicators, these figures contribute to success in the following two categories: progress and productivity.
Why progress is third:
Progress is one of the easiest ways to quantify agile metrics. The burn-down diagram, for example, shows how far the Agile team is. Agile projects are generally difficult to quantify, so agile team leaders emphasize progress. You measure what you see. However, problems can arise when teams make great progress in projects that don't provide value and are accidentally full and don't deliver fast value. Therefore, progress must support value and quality.
Why productivity ranks fourth:
Productivity is one of the most important performance standards for any activity. The challenge for agile projects is that measuring productivity can have unintended consequences. For example, if you try to quantify the productivity of individual team members, you may miss the ability to help the entire team succeed. Depending on the needs of your organization and the skills of your team members, you can interchange productivity and progress. Regardless of how you approach these two indicators, you should reflect your contribution to quality and value.
When DMI developed APIX, they recognized that metrics affect behavior. People automatically adjust priorities to achieve numerical goals. That's why we created an agile index to prioritize the actions needed for agile success. We also built flexibility in APIX parameters to adapt to each customer's business needs.
From our point of view, progress and productivity are empty data points until they support quality and added value. In experience, folding these numbers into priorities can provide metrics that meet or exceed everything the waterfall project can offer.
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