Comments on: Velocity is not enough, expand the Agile dashboard … http://alterlabs.com/general/articles/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/ Results through imagination Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:56:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: ALTERthought Blogs » Velocity (plus, plus) - Beefing up the Agile dashboard http://alterlabs.com/general/articles/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/comment-page-1/#comment-29816 ALTERthought Blogs » Velocity (plus, plus) - Beefing up the Agile dashboard Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:14:20 +0000 http://alterlabs.com/uncategorized/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/#comment-29816 [...] First of all, how in the world did I temporarily forget how to spell out the ‘+’ symbol ( !! - It ‘looked’ correct with two s’s - sad, really)? Earlier,  I hinted at some other measures to add as _support_ to the Agile toolkit . To be clear, the raw measure that matters the most when it comes to understanding which features and whether our joint ALTERthought-client teams are delivering against plan is velocity. Period. That being said, while velocity is a good indicator of the effectiveness of the particular team/project/organization, in and of itself it does not convey rich information about the internal workings of your team and software development processes. So, velocity must be coaxed, teased, and massaged to uncover facts about the software development effort that helps satisfy a key tenet of Agile: to continuously improve. In fact, at times, velocity may be a sort of lagging indicator of what may be transpiring with regard to the process and organizational dynamics (factors the tremendously impact project success). [...] [...] First of all, how in the world did I temporarily forget how to spell out the ‘+’ symbol ( !! – It ‘looked’ correct with two s’s – sad, really)? Earlier,  I hinted at some other measures to add as _support_ to the Agile toolkit . To be clear, the raw measure that matters the most when it comes to understanding which features and whether our joint ALTERthought-client teams are delivering against plan is velocity. Period. That being said, while velocity is a good indicator of the effectiveness of the particular team/project/organization, in and of itself it does not convey rich information about the internal workings of your team and software development processes. So, velocity must be coaxed, teased, and massaged to uncover facts about the software development effort that helps satisfy a key tenet of Agile: to continuously improve. In fact, at times, velocity may be a sort of lagging indicator of what may be transpiring with regard to the process and organizational dynamics (factors the tremendously impact project success). [...]

]]> By: sunjay http://alterlabs.com/general/articles/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/comment-page-1/#comment-29760 sunjay Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:17:06 +0000 http://alterlabs.com/uncategorized/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/#comment-29760 Hi David, thanks for the heads up on the burn chart link -- fixed. Re: what is helpful/not helpful, I we're going to roll out a few of these as the next few weeks go by. To your point, measurement for the sake of measurement, is not what we're advocating. What we're advocating is measurement that is used as a 'corroborator' or point of jump-off to analyze degradation or sudden improvements in velocity. Further, outside of *perhaps* some transparent (ahem, translucent) time tracking, 'actual effort' capture does not rank at the top of the list. More to come in next few days ... Hi David, thanks for the heads up on the burn chart link — fixed. Re: what is helpful/not helpful, I we’re going to roll out a few of these as the next few weeks go by. To your point, measurement for the sake of measurement, is not what we’re advocating. What we’re advocating is measurement that is used as a ‘corroborator’ or point of jump-off to analyze degradation or sudden improvements in velocity. Further, outside of *perhaps* some transparent (ahem, translucent) time tracking, ‘actual effort’ capture does not rank at the top of the list. More to come in next few days …

]]> By: David http://alterlabs.com/general/articles/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/comment-page-1/#comment-29759 David Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:35:53 +0000 http://alterlabs.com/uncategorized/velocity-is-not-enough-expanding-the-agile-dashboard/#comment-29759 The links for burn charts does not work. It is true, that you need to adapt what you measure based on how your project and team operates. The blob above I fear is free rein for a manager who has just been pushing for any and all measurements....I'm hoping that the info under the links qualified a bit what is and isn't helpful. That may be a bit defensive on my part after there was some talk about getting developers to track time on the quarter hour basis "for a while" to get a better sense of why software development take the time that it does. The links for burn charts does not work. It is true, that you need to adapt what you measure based on how your project and team operates. The blob above I fear is free rein for a manager who has just been pushing for any and all measurements….I’m hoping that the info under the links qualified a bit what is and isn’t helpful.

That may be a bit defensive on my part after there was some talk about getting developers to track time on the quarter hour basis “for a while” to get a better sense of why software development take the time that it does.

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