Metrics That Matter

Metrics = Dashboard Gauges

Spotify's Health Check

Metric Mistakes

  • Measuring what's easy to count, not what's important
  • Measuring process not impact, e.g., attendance instead of engagement
  • Focusing on numbers not issues
  • Using metrics to blame people

What Matters?

  • Delivery of value, as measured by
    • Velocity
    • Product quality
    • Client satisfaction
  • Team Development, including
    • Morale
    • Engagement with team and project
    • Learning
  • All other metrics matter only when they impact one of the above

The Goal is not to Track

The Goal is to Detect

  • Quickly and cheaply detect possible problems when they're small
    • Quickly: find data that updates frequently
    • Cheaply: find data that's cheap to get, like commit logs, Slack threads, ...
  • Be paranoid. Look for trouble.
    • Don't average. Averaging smooths things out.
    • Use minimums, maximums, and such.

Metrics have causes

What do to when you detect something

Address in the weekly team retrospective.

Thanks to Hakim El Hattab for RevealJS