KeepingMeasurementSimple

One of the easiest ways to effect an agile implementation is to start measuring something. The first thing to remember is that this effect could be positive or negative.

A couple of positive examples are:

• Once we had a developer not creating good coverage, we wrote the numbers on the board, the team fixed the problem in no time (no new rules policies or anything) just make it visible.
• On projects I measure the number of cards completed and reward the number of cards. Teams break teh work down further to get credit for more cards.

A couple of negative examples are:

• Measuring and advertising individual velocity will prevent teamwork.

These topics are often discussed and quite well understood, measurement effects behavior so measure the right things and use them the right way.

What I would like to discuss is the measurement everyone is scared of

• measuring data provided outside the team
• measuring team and organizations readiness to do agile
• measuring developers skills