Benchmarking Agile Teams

Benchmarking agile Teams
Agile Evolu+on
Christoph Mathis

Stable, cross func7onal teams:
a core prerequisite to succeed with Agility
•  Small, stable teams make agile principles work.
•  Agility relies on team responsibility + con+nuous
improvement.
•  One key success factor in an Agile Enterprise is the eﬀec+ve
collabora+on of its teams - and their con+nuous eﬀort to
improve.
This is the reason why we need to assess and benchmark
teams
© improuv GmbH Agile Leadership | hJp://improuv.com 2

To start working with a team:
facilitate a self assessment
Why
•  To assess the poten+al of improvement,
you need a concept of "beJer"
•  So, you need an idea for criteria to assess against
How
•  Assessments, measuring, benchmarking is tricky: it can
backﬁre in a preJy bad way. Self assessments avoid many
of these piQalls
What
•  Focus on the right level – on capabili+es.
Capabili7es describe what can be provided
and are more stable than the how.

What to assess

You can assess prac7ces,
like in the frequently used "Nokia Test"
But:
•  In some teams, we see poor prac+ces, but the team s+ll
achievs outstanding results
•  … and vice versa
(to tell a secret: we encountered the second case much more oZen)

Maybe, you have to look beyond
prac7ces ... to business goals?
Business goals like …
•  adap+ng to changing condi+ons
•  surviving in a changing environment
•  providing the best service at the best price

The Problem:
Most of the +me, business goals are too general
to give concrete guidance what to do.

We came up with a more speciﬁc
focus: Capabili7es
Capabili+es help to fulﬁll business objec+ves
•  Business objec+ves -> Capabili+es
Capabili+es are in turn provided through a
combina+on of
•  Empowerment
•  Intent
•  Prac+ces
•  Knowledge
•  Skills

Capabili7es are the ideal touch
point for assessments
For the team
•  Capabili+es guide the team towards the business
objec+ves it helps to fulﬁll
•  They focus on „what“ instead on „how“
For the outside, e.g. management or customers
•  Capabili+es help to evaluate a team without micro
managing the team’s work
•  They tend to provide ac+onable op+ons towards
enablement instead of using pressure

Context is important

Industrial and Knowledge Work
Before we go deeper, we have to look at the type of
work in development environments.
Industrial work
• has a clear dis+nc+on of planning and execu+on
(and assigns these typically to different persons)
• has a clear opinion about „efficient“
Knowledge work, the emerging dominant work form
of the 21st century, is different.

Knowledge Work is different
In knowledge work, the defini+on of efficient and effec+ve
is much more difficult
One way to describe knowledge work is „I know the job
beJer than my boss does“
•  Work is much harder to evaluate
•  Mo+va+on, Skill, Collabora+on become key factors for
effec+ve work
•  Many restric+on in the effec+veness are outside factors
Leading knowledge workers focuses on delega+ng
decisions and developing people instead of managing
things.

So, measuring of an agile team must
include its rela7on to the outside world
Team skills include
• their daily business
• their ability to cooperate
• their intent and ability to make a contribu+on
(and to take responsibility) for value crea+on
• their focus on par+cipa+ng in global improvement
eﬀorts

Agile Maturity Models include
these factors
The exis+ng models for team assessment include
both capabili+es to contribute to the greater good
and to deal with problems, e.g.
• Seven Pillars
• Agile Fluency
• Execute - Pull - Flow - Innovate

Exis7ng Maturiy Models

Seven Pillars
The seven pillars
model describes
dimensions of team
skill. These
dimensions cover
technical excellence
and the teams ability
to use a more global
point of view - and
its aim to contribute
in diﬀerent ways to
the overall
development eﬀort.
picture: Brian Marick

Agile
Fluency
The path to Agile
Fluency starts at the
point where a team
„just“ builds code. It
takes more and
more
responsibili+es and
can provide a beJer
and more valuable
contribu+on to the
value crea+on
process.

Execute - Pull - Flow - Innovate
Rallye’s steps of team excellence*
• Execute - deliver
• Pull - pull new requirements as they need it and
contribute to the effec+ve value stream
• Flow - help op+mizing the complete value stream
• Innovate - find new incremental and disrup+ve
ways to improve products and value stream
* hJps://www.rallydev.com/blog/agile/alterna+ve-agile-adop+on-cookbooks-flow-pull-innovate

About Agile Evolu7on

The Agile Evolu7on Approach
Agile Evolu+on adopts the broader view of
capabili+es.
• It includes a holis+c view of the team and its
environment
• It is useful for all agile methods and helps to unlock
concealed improvement poten+als
• It acknowledges the diﬀerent focus seqngs and
learning needs for teams in diﬀerent stages of
development

Start with discussing Basic Team
Capabili7es (which every team needs)
Agile Teams contribute best to the success of their
organiza+on when they
• Work in small incremental (ver+cal) slices of
func+onality
• Priori+ze with a backlog and well defined quality
goals (defini+on of done)
• Collaborate, reflect and improve as a team
• Make progress measurable and quality transparent
- develop automated tests in the same Sprint as
development

The role of Methods
The agile methods provide prac+ces to support
providing these capabili+es - in diﬀerent ways and
with a diﬀerent focus.
Let’s look into
• Scrum
• Kanban
• Extreme Programming

Scrum
• Scrum provides a priori+zed backlog, requires a
poten+ally shippable product increment at the end
of each Sprint
• Creates a +mebox to stabilize these capabili+es
• Provides implicitly a WIP limit (Sprint Backlog)
• Enforces team accountability
• Supports team collabora+on and development
through a mandatory retrospec+ve mee+ng at the
end of each Sprint

Kanban
• Starts with the visualiza+on of the process
• Concentrates on flow, WIP limit and delivery -
delivery in short cycles follows implicitly from this
focus
• Helps to improve work through visualiza+on of the
flow, e.g. CFD (cumula+ve flow diagram)
• Team work and team responsibility is op+onal in
Kanban

Extreme Programming
• Provides soZware prac+ces to assure the quality of
work
• Prac+ces are mandatory for sustainable success (in
most environments)
• Today heavily used as a „plugin“ for one of the
other methods

A comprehensive team assessment
A team assessment can cover the following areas:
• Product Quality
• Planning Quality
• Consistent Delivery
• Collabora+ve Work
• Inter-Team Collabora+on
• Empowerment
• Con+nuous Improvement
For more info, mail to: contact@improuv.com

About Measuring

The nature and piSalls of
measuring
• PiQalls and dangers
• Why we concentrate on self assessment

Metrics modify behavior (1)
28
Lines of Code
Personal Performance
In Time, scope, budget
Bloated Code
Rivalry, not Cooperation
Sloppy Software
© improuv GmbH Agile Leadership | hJp://improuv.com

Metrics modify behavior (2)
29
Customer Sa+sfac+on
Team-Zufriedenheit
Bugs in Produc+on Code
€
Motivation, Productivity
Life Cycle Cost

Who measures Whom
30
I measure
(secretely)
I measure
(transparently)
Team measures
Fear
Gaming the
Metrics
Autonomy

A necessary shiV in goals:
From: Evalua+on to control
behavior
To: Maximize Learning

Valid Goals of a (self-) assessment
•  Find direct improvement opportuni+es
•  Extend the range of viewpoints - remove blind
spots
•  Strengthen team autonomy - enable the team to
steer their own process improvement
•  Improve alignment - provide transparency on
personal, team and organiza+onal goals

Provide a good environment

Enabling Factors
Leadership
• Help the team to iden+fy opportuni+es
Sustainable Pace
• Deﬁne a budget in terms of +me and WIP limit
Transparency
• Create an open environment which empowers
people and values alignment over compliance
Trust
• Make sure openness is not exploited

Enabling Factors
Provide a healthy environment
•  teams cannot perform indeﬁnitely if their
organiza+on is broken
Protect the team
•  A team caught in strong cross wind („seitenwind“)
will not easily achieve high performance
Isola+on only works so far
•  Be a change agent - help the organiza+on to
develop towards a Lean Agile Enterprise

Ask the Team
Inspect and Adapt
Deliver every Sprint
Treat People as Adults

Benchmarking Agile Teams

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