There’s a monster out there! If you roll out large-scaled agile metrics the wrong way, it can be a monster, raggedly sewn together from different, incompatible mindsets. It may be able to breathe — and maybe even walk — but don’t be surprised when you find your business being choked to death by it.
With a visual and a presentation style that tips the hat to a classic horror story, you’ll learn about SAFe metrics that make sense and make a difference in your business.
Bringing the creature to life (i.e., The Genius of SAFe and The Problem) SAFe provides a clear, easy-to-follow map for scaling your agile process. Even though SAFe covers metrics in the M1-M8 specification, that isn’t its primary mission. So the specification is neither as broad nor as deep enough to have a truly successful understanding of what’s going on — and what to do about it.
Moreover, much of the information on the SAFe metrics page is admittedly just examples. Some of it doesn’t go very far in-depth, mostly just providing suggestions of things you might want to look at further.
Keep it from destroying the town (The Solution) In this talk you'll see fully fleshed out visualizations complete with calculations and noise filtering capability that will show you the "What?” (see below). More importantly, it includes references to trends, benchmarking, indicators, and analysis that allows you to also answer the "So what?" and even the "Now what?"
Meet the townspeople (The Examples) The examples you’ll see are not theoretical. They come from roughly 30 organizations using various parts of this framework. We'll talk about their experiences, the struggles they had and how the framework we're discussing successfully deals with those difficulties.
What? (The Science) Metrics are inherently about the “What.” What is our current sprint velocity? What is our current defect density? What can we predict for the next iteration? And more...
Many of the existing SAFe metrics were chosen based on well-educated best guesses of what might be useful to track rather than what are empirically shown to be the most useful. We studied 120 individual metrics related just to M7 and M8, and found the seven metrics that were the most useful by best illuminating the dimensions that M7 and M8 are attempting to track.
So What? Now What? (The Moral) In order to be truly useful in business decisions, metrics must go beyond the “What?” and help you answer the “So What?” and even the “Now What?”
SAFe is clear about the fact that implementing metrics requires "Adult Supervision" if you want to avoid “unintended” behaviors, i.e., the dark side of metrics that comes from gaming and unhealthy internal competition, but doesn’t go into detail about what that is or how to do it. (
http://scaledagileframework.com/metrics/).
We extend that idea by including clear guidelines on what is meant by being an “adult” with respect to scaled agile metrics that reinforce your agile culture.
What to expect:
Overview of Leffingwell's current SAFe metrics M1-M8
Explain the framework (Team, Program, Portfolio/Organization)
Propose Rally’s framework similar to SAFe M1-M8, and extending it further
Give examples of how to satisfy each
- What to do and what NOT to do when rolling out metrics at scale in an agile environment
Presentation
