15+ Useful Agile Metrics in Scrum and Kanban: Measure Quality, Productivity and Performance

Agile metrics are an important part of an agile development process for the software. They help software teams monitor productivity throughout the workflow phases, access the quality of the software, and make the development process clearer. Agile software development metrics can also help an agile master keep track of the well-being of his teams.

In order to measure the quality of the software, productivity, performance/well-being, and general project metrics, we have decided to use scrum and Kanban metrics for our list. We will also look at the lean kanban metrics and how your product ends up in two separate sections with clean code.

Agile Metrics Types

Three main kinds of agile metrics exist:

• Metrics of the scrum. The most frequently used software metrics.
• Metrics of Kanban. A similar scrum methodology agile software development framework.
• Lean metrics. Lean metrics. Metrics used to simplify the production of physical products that originate from kanban and scrum.

15+ Useful Agile Metrics in Scrum and Kanban

Agile Productivity Metrics

It helps to keep your team on track when you complete stories and tasks with agile productivity. Agile productivity can also predict future projects to prevent any unexpected changes by your team.

This enables continuous project monitoring from backlog to release.

The aim is to ensure that the lead time is low, as this means that it is more effective.

Lead time is an agile metric that gives an overview of the different productivity methods

Lead Time

Lead Time enables the surveillance of a story when a backlog enters a sprint (or to the moment of release). The lower your development process is, the more efficient you are. Lead Time is one of the agile measurements that allow you to gain an overall view of your development efforts productivity.

Cycle time

This allows you to measure the average time required for a job. The less the better

Sprint burndown

A team forecasts the number of story points they can complete in their course before they start a sprint. Sprint Burndown allows a master scrum/kanban to track the completion of these story points and ensure a team completes the work in due course.

Burndown Sprint is for a few additional reasons one of the most effective metrics of agile productivity. First, it allows you to closely and in real-time monitor the progress of a sprint. Second, the metric demonstrates the agility of your team.

Velocity

The average work done by a team during a sprint is speed measured. There are several iterations in the report in this case. The exactness of the prediction is dependent on how many iterations are carried out.

The more iterations the prediction is accurate. The measuring unit is time or story. The ability of a team to work with backlogs is determined by speed. With the passing of time, speed is evolving. It is important to track speed to ensure consistent performance. If the speed drops, this is an indication that the team has something to fix.

Core Lean and Kanban Metrics

The lean key metrics and methods common for the development and production of both software and goods are explored.

Story Lead and Cycle Time - (SLT)

This allows you to track the amount of time that passes from the start of a task to the end of it. The ultimate objective of SLT is to help teams monitor and reduce the value chain speed. Cycle time for stories is a part of lead time, but it only evaluates a task's timing. This helps to track the time spent on it and reduce it.

Cycle Time & Lead - (FLT) and (FCT) feature

Similar to the story and cycle time, lead time is the same concept, except that it is the most important feature rather than the overall story/task. Function cycle time, for features, is also identical to story cycle time.

Wait Time for Story - (SWT)

Another component connected to the lead time for Story. This measurement helps you manage a task's rest time. The SWT should be as reduced as possible by every team.

Throughput Story - (ST)

This is a concept similar to Sprint Velocity, which helps to count the number of histories completed in a sprint. The best way of working with smaller stories is to achieve story throughput.

Prepared to complete ratio

This means too many projects are in reverse and insufficient is completed. This metric is helpful because it helps to control the number of bottlenecks between projects initiated and projects finished.

Epic & Release Burndown

These measurements permit teams to track larger works than can be covered by Sprint Burndown. Epic Burndown and Release Burndown's greatest advantage is that they can help to manage the gap – the addition of new needs after the project scope has already been defined.

These agile measurements help you ensure that your team doesn't lose output, for example when your customer's product owner tasks the team to add another huge feature.

Sprint Burndown

A team forecasts the number of stories points they can complete in their course before they start a sprint. Sprint Burndown allows a master scrum/kanban to track the completion of these story points and ensure a team completes the work in due course.

Agile metrics of the project

A practical addition to the above metrics, agile project metrics provide us with practical information about your development processes, thus helping your team to avoid big and small problems.

Cumulative Flow

Cumulative flow is perhaps one of Kanban's most potent agile project metrics. It allows you to see in a sprint, release, and across software teams the status of your tasks. This measure enables you to view and immediately identify bottlenecks for all workflow stages – all of them in a single diagram.

Code Coverage

Code Coverage helps you to calculate the extent to which unit tests cover the codes of your product and to show them in a raw visual. The number of methods, conditions, statements, and branches comprising your testing suite can be measured. As part of each build, you can also automatically run Code Coverage.

Although codes are one of the most effective agile metrics, the input of other test types cannot be measured. If your numbers are high, that means that your product doesn't necessarily have solid code. Nevertheless, the metric gives an excellent insight into your product quality.

Control Charts

In agile, control charts focus on the time from the "ongoing" to the "finished" task status. It is intended to verify the cycle time of a single problem. Teams with cycle times consistent deliveries are predictable.

In addition, teams with short cycle times have a high performance. By measuring cycle times, teams improve their processes' flexibility. In the event of changes, for example, you can immediately discern the results. Team members are therefore able to make the required adjustments. Overall, in every sprint, a short, consistent cycle time is the goal.

Health Metrics for Agile Teams/Agile Performance Metrics

While the most agile software development methodologies aim to evaluate software quality and team productivity from different stages and perspectives, it is crucial to monitor your team's well-being.

Value Delivered

Project managers here assign every requirement value. This metric uses dollars or a system of points. The top priority should be the implementation of high-value features. This is shown by an upward trend in this metric.

A downward trend, however, is not an excellent sign. This means that the lower value characteristics are being implemented. The team should make modifications if this is the case. Sometimes even product development needs to be stopped.

Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score measures just how much customers are prepared to recommend to others the product or service. The index is between -100 and 100. The loyalty of customers is important in determining a company's success. For this purpose, you may use the Net Promoter Score as a proxy.

Dynamic Code Analysis

Dynamic code analyzes are the other way round and can evaluate how well code works for the running software. While static code analysis plays a larger role, QA experts can dynamically analyze issues that arise when different software elements communicate. However, this does not mean that you can skip dynamic code analysis — you should use it next to your counterpart.

Quality Intelligence

Analysis of code is often insufficient. You may want to make an exhaustive assessment to identify software points in your quality-assurance development process and simplify your software supply further at a time where the software needs to be provided and updated quickly.

Quality intelligence tools provide a solution, helping teams collect data from the whole life cycle of software development, analyze these data and use them to improve their workflows in quality assurance.

Failed Deployments

Failure to deploy is a useful metric of quality. It helps to evaluate the number of total applications. In addition, the reliability of the testing and production environment can be determined by teams. This metric also decides if a sprint is ready for production.

Conclusion

Our selection includes agile software development measurements which help you deliver quality software on time while ensuring your team members are well-being. However, it is not a prerequisite for success to use each and every metric on our list. In the end, your choice depends on the scrum/kanban master of your team, your team, and your company's agile culture.

Happy Learning

Rohan Girdhani Tech Manager | Consultant