Agile Metrics Sizes Software for Portfolio Value Delivery

Agile Metrics provides software development leaders quantitative insights into the cost and value delivered by agile projects, programs and/or portfolios. In addition they also provide quantifiable insights critical to planning agile projects, programs and portfolios. Further insights are gained in the process of estimation, evaluating projects and deciding on which projects to do within a portfolio or product line.

Agile techniques have historically leveraged relative measures to size work, compute velocity and other team level metrics. The most common examples of metrics in agile are Story Points and Ideal Days. Relative scrum metrics support team level measures but have little value at the organizational level.

Leveraging non-relative size measures, such as Function Points, Function Point Lite and Quick and Early Function Points provides leadership a quantitative means to gain enterprise wide data-driven insights. This data provides transparency into the economic and engineering performance, such as agile quality metrics, of agile projects, programs and portfolios.

Our consultants provide customized sizing expertise for metrics in agile to help you move to quantitative decision making.  

Our Agile Metrics Offerings Include:

• Training: Agile Estimation 
• Agile Transformation Value Measurement Proof of Concept
• Value Metrics Proof-of-Concept  

Common Use Case Scenarios for Agile Project Metrics

Usage of metrics in agile is seen often in these use cases:

• Agile Transformation – Many organizations have replaced their waterfall model with Agile teams for a portion of their software development and seen the benefits at small scale. Agile project metrics become a locus of interest. Before committing to a large-scale transition, establishing an agile project management metrics program can ensure that the expected benefits will be realized by the organization.
• Portfolio Planning and Capacity Benchmarking - Portfolio planning is, at its heart, an exercise of deciding what can be completed that delivers the maximum level of value. Capacity benchmarking quantifies your delivery throughout. Agile project metrics based on function points provide a means to prioritize and measure capacity and work in process.
• Agile Governance – There are multiple levels of data that can provide insight for data-driven decision-making. The diagram ‘Agile Governance Metrics Roadmap’ provides a visual guide to the types of data, inside-out, needed for an organization to effectively oversee agile.

Learn More:

• Case Study: DCG worked with a federal government agency and its program-level managers to define and establish Agile project management metrics and Agile program level metrics, consistent with traditional waterfall measures. 
• Case Study: DCG Software Value Utilizes Agile Metrics to Size and Evaluate the Performance of an IT Vendor for a Global Financial Solutions Provider, Resulting in Increased Vendor Oversight
• Trusted Advisor Report:This report examines the purpose functional metrics play in newer development frameworks like Agile.

The Insights section of our website features additional reference materials. Visit it to find more information on this topic. 

Consulting Services:

These services featured above are packaged, standard offerings developed from years of practical experience working with industrial and commercial clients within multiple industries. These services are effective and proven but we understand you may have specific needs. We often get requests to develop customized offerings based on the fundamentals of our Agile Metrics service(s), and we’d be delighted to discuss your particular situation.

For more information, contact David Lambert at +719.582.2003.