Navigating The Metrics Maze

How to Choose and Use Scrum Metrics for Maximum Impact

As Scrum Masters, we often face the challenge of collecting and presenting metrics to show the team’s progress. However, these metrics can be either valuable or nonsensical, and it’s important to understand which ones drive the team forward.

Mangement often requests metrics like

• the number of user stories completed per sprint,
• the total number of user stories completed, or
• even the total number of story points across multiple teams.

However, these metrics are often not accurate and can steer teams in the wrong direction. Metrics can be manipulated. If the team feels it is essential to complete many tasks or achieve many story points, they simply cut the user stories smaller and and estimate them higher.

The goal of Scrum is not to complete as many tasks as possible or to complete with other teams. The goal is to produce high-quality work that adds value to the customer.

Scrum teams should use metrics that help them measure their effectiveness and improve their work.

Some helpful metrics are:

1. Velocity is the number of story points the team completed per sprint. It indicates how much work the team can accomplish in a Sprint and helps plan future Sprints.
2. Predictability: In the planning, the team gives an estimate. At the end of the sprint, it can be measured how correct the estimation was. That helps for further planning and communication with stakeholders.
3. Cycle Time is the time it takes to complete a task from the moment it goes into the process to when it is completed. It is an essential indicator of the team’s effectiveness in completing tasks.
4. The defect rate is the number of defects found during a sprint. It indicates the quality of the team’s work and can help identify areas for improvement.
5. Customer satisfaction indicates how satisfied customers are with the product. It can help gather feedback and understand how the team can improve their work to meet customer needs.

We need to choose metrics that measure as objectively as possible for good validity. For example, if we want to measure a team’s speed, velocity is usually used for this purpose. However, this metric is only helpful if used internally within the team and with other metrics. However, this metric is only helpful if used internally within the team and with other metrics. It must be ensured, that velocity does not come at the expense of software quality or by working a lot of overtime.

As a Scrum Master, there are a few things you should keep in mind when it comes to metrics:

1. Make sure your metrics help the team improve their work and support the proper prioritization.
2. Avoid evaluating or comparing the team based on metrics. That can lead to the team being pressured and focusing on the wrong things.
3. Use metrics to stimulate discussion and drive improvement in the process. However, they should not be used to punish or reward the team.
4. Make sure the team understands the metrics and can use them to improve their work. It is vital to ensure the team understands the importance of the metrics and how they can be used to enhance their work.
5. Less is more. It is better to focus on a handful of meaningful metrics rather than overwhelming the team with many metrics.

In summary, metrics can be a helpful tool for Scrum Teams to improve their work and measure their effectiveness. However, it is crucial to understand which metrics are beneficial and which are not and to ensure that the team understands the importance of the metrics and how they can be used to improve their work.

You as a Scrum Master need to ensure that the metrics help motivate and improve the team rather than to burden or misdirect them.

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