Measurement is a key part of tracking progress of any kind of work. Well defined and transparent way of measuring, with a goal of improving key areas of focus is a key to success. It’s not enough to just measure, we need to act on the results, of course, but usually the first steps of improvement are the hardest. If we don’t know where we are now, there is no way to know if any change we introduce is for better or worse.
Ideally, we should be able to measure everything we care about, is some way that is meaningful to us. In practice, it’s not possible to measure everything, so we need to choose wisely what we measure. Making measurement always influence the process that is measured.
Word measure can be substituted with: notice, speak about, rise up, etc. If problems aren’t noticed, or spoken about there is no way to react to them.
Who should measure
It’s
Quantifying the process
Purpose
- Small set of well-defined KPI that shows state of thing we care about.
- Culture of open communication, asking and taking actions
Examples
- Action Items on decision-making meetings
- Frequency of using formal and informal means of giving feedback among peers
Checklist
- We know our KPI well and agree all of them make sense and measure essence of our work
- We have adequate control over measured process to be hold responsible for all KPIs
- We keep living board of things to do like we do, and things we notice we could do better
- We are able to speak freely about identified risks and impediments
- We give each other feedback frequently
- We don’t have problem to assign AI within a team
- We know our build/deploy time
- We are aware of critical path in our process
Traps
It’s easy to fall into various traps along the way of implementing measurement culture. Some of them are:
Measuring too much
It’s easy to create measurements in large numbers, not all of possible measurements are useful. It’s very easy to lose focus on what is important, if we try to track too much information at once. Also, it’s usually not necessary, generates waste, and can be counterproductive.
Ability to create meaningful, small set of measurements that are applicable to our work is a skill that’s worth developing. The urge of trying to measure everything, especially if it’s outside of reasonable scope of our work, is a sign of lack of trust from the management.