Succeeding with Agile

A Balanced Scorecard for Scrum Teams

It’s well known that if we introduce a new metric and tell teams that they will be evaluated against that metric, they will alter their behavior to optimize that metric. Tell a team that it will be measured on the number of defects in the defect tracking system and that number will go down—perhaps because of good, honest improvements, but perhaps also because team members will find ways to more informally communicate about some bugs, thereby bypassing the defect tracking system. Even if we could devise a metric that couldn’t be gamed, one number does not present a complete view. Maybe the team decreased the number of defects by dramatically cutting back on productivity. It delivered 90% less functionality ...