The success of a product is always dependent on its working features, so it is important for a team to validate the functions of their developing product at each phase. Metrics forms the vital role in quantitative assessment of a developing product. This helps to recognize the problems, supports in adapting changes, analyzing the features and measuring the productivity.
For developing a product, it is significant to have a standard methodology, parameters and checkpoints for its easy validation. Thus metrics are utilized in agile implementation for enhancing the functionality of a product. Metrics is a major aspect that helps to measure the performance of a developing product and thus allows to evaluate the product efficiency.
The agile teams practice few important metrics which supports the team in planning, inspecting, adapting and processing over time. The major parameters which are used in agile implementation are:
Writing a Story - It is fundamental for all team members to write a story of the task they are working on and add complete acceptance criteria for their story. Thus it will be easy for the team members to have a shared understanding of complete context of the work need to be done and also allows the team to evaluate the main focusing points.
Iteration Goals - The formation of goals for an iteration helps the team to understand the work priority. The iteration goals allow to find out how the team is working, to know whether the team is achieving success rates or it is lagging behind due to blockers. The success of an iteration is measured by obtaining a working product that meets all the iteration goals.
Managing Defects - The defects appear in every phase of a product development, but agile methodologies help to reduce the impact of defects on the product. By tracking the possible defects, it supports the teams to overcome the problems, refine process and prevents running out of time at the end.
Team Velocity - The average number of story points carried out by a team in an iteration is called as team velocity. It is important for the team to maintain the velocity of stories need to be done in the each iteration. Thus it helps the team to achieve the PI planning objectives and manage their product release schedule.
Time Span of Product Development - By implementing agile approaches, it is easy to deliver a product than with the other traditional methods. The teams are following frequent analysis process, which allows to overcome failures at the end. The efficiency of a team is measured with the duration of time spent for developing a product successfully.
Maintaining Quality - The team should be concerned about delivering quality product to the customers. Thus it is significant thing for the team to check quality of their developing product in each and every stage. So it will be easy for the team members to adapt any modifications, which need to be done for the product.
Team Coordination - The main thing for all team members is to have understanding of the workflow and collaborate accordingly. So the teams should regularly practice daily standups, team demos and team retrospective.
Release Time - The major significance of all teams is to deliver value and generate revenue with their developing product. Thus releasing a product within the scheduled time helps the team to fund their developing product and also enhances their productivity.
Capital Budget - The Agile developing product teams requires low capital then the other traditional methods. The stakeholders and Business Owners collaborate to plan the budget at earliest by analyzing the market statics, return on investment and also perform the capital redeployment in accordance to the product. Thus it helps the team members to have a good financial support to deliver the product effectively.
Getting Regular Feedback - Involving customers and stakeholders in the product development helps to obtain frequent reviews of product. Thus supports the team to develop an efficient product by reaching customer values.
Adapting Modifications - It is foremost for all the agile teams to be flexible in accepting changes, adding requirements and changing priorities in accordance to customer needs. But it is also important to take care of iteration time box before accepting any modifications. The Product Owner is responsible for introducing any modifications during iteration planning.
Measure Performance - All the delivered products efficiency need to be measured in terms of its functionality but not in relation to the output. Thus it helps the team to enhance their market with new strategies and also allows to improve the team skills.
The usage of metrics in agile implementation supports the teams to be aware of the things to be done for their developing product. Working with metrics helps the team to have all the requirements and validate the progress of developing product. Thus it aids the developing teams to have a checklist and maintain flow of work to enhance product functionality.
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References:
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/metrics/
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ten-key-metrics-for-agile-project-management.html
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/metrics
https://www.hashdoc.com/documents/24715/useful-metrics-for-agile-teams
