Presented at Deluxe's annual internal Product Learning Summit in 2016

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AGILE
METRICS
WHAT WE MEASURE
Will Sansbury
Director, User Experience … and why

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Images from https://www.flickr.com/photos/arthurtlabar/4252325681/ and
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31029865@N06/15071850612 2

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METRICS
Daily

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Sprint Burndown
8
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10
Ideal Actual

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The Sprint Burndown
helps us to
identify and mitigate
risk to the sprint
as early as possible.

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Based on what
we know today,
how likely are we
to achieve our
sprint goal?
It’s looking iffy?
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What scrum teams can do about sprint burndown
Each sprint
• Facilitate important conversations
each day at stand up
• Identify failures early so we can try to
mitigate
• Recognize when the team is stalled
and needs outside help
• Recognize when the team has more
capacity and can pull in additional
stories
Trending
• Recognize repeated patterns and
diagnose root cause
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The Ideal
Looks good—keep doing what
you’re doing
The Sandbag
Make more aggressive
commitments
The Chunky Monkey
Split stories to help you identify
and mitigate risk
The Surprise Party
Focus on grooming and
planning to reduce surprises
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The team’s
burndown is
erratic sprint
after sprint.
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What leaders can do about the burndown
Coach
• Ask questions to make sure the team
is aware of the problem and
attempting to fix it
• Work with team to recognize negative
patterns and devise strategies to fix
them
• Provide spot training for the team if
necessary
Make tough calls
• Change up who is on the team to
disrupt unhealthy team dynamics
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METRICS
Sprint

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Velocity
16
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6
Planned Actual

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Velocity ensures
our plans can always reflect
our best information.

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If our velocity
stays the same,
we won’t deliver
all that’s planned
in this release.
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What scrum teams can do about velocity
Increase velocity
• Identify and fix efficiency siphons
• Reduce capacity for non-feature work
• Take on technical debt
• Put on a cape
Change plans
• Reduce scope of the release
• Change date of the release
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That release is in
trouble, and it’s
strategically
important.
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What leaders can do about velocity
• Coach team to improve velocity
• Help teams identify efficiency siphons
• Champion long-term balance and
sustainability
• Discourage heroics
• Roll up sleeves
• Help close stories
• Take work off team’s plate that doesn’t
contribute to the release
• Ease stress of non-work life if possible
• Facilitate difficult conversations
• With stakeholders
• With customers
• With other teams
• Change the team’s capacity
• Open new positions
• Reassign folks from other teams
• Augment team with contractors
• Fund purchases that improve team’s
capacity (build vs. buy, tools, etc.)
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Work ratios
23
Features Architecture
Bugs
Technical
Debt
VISIBLE INVISIBLE
- VALUE
+ VALUE

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We’re using
4% of our time
on tech debt, but
we said we’d
give it 20%.
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What scrum teams can do about work ratios
Find balance
• Agree what the right mix is for your
product, team, and code base
• Make that mix part of your team
agreements and share them widely
• Revisit the agreement quarterly
Hold yourselves accountable
• If you don’t do it, discuss why
at retrospective
• If you don’t do it, be transparent about
that at demo and share why you didn’t
• If you don’t do it repeatedly, ask
for help
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Despite good
intentions, the
team is losing
ground on
tech debt.
Well, what can
we do about it?

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What leaders can do about work ratios
Support team
• Ask questions when ratios seem out
of whack
• Make sure the team is being
intentional about work ratios
• Balance short-term and long-term
decisions about work ratios
Facilitate difficult conversations
• With stakeholders
• With customers
• With other teams
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METRICS
Are Not Magic

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Lightning Deaths
29
In 1940
340
In 2015
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Metrics don’t give us answers.
They give us the ability
to ask better questions.

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QUESTIONS?