The most important things cannot be measured. The issues that are most important, long term, cannot be measured in advance.
—W. Edwards Deming
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
—Agile Manifesto
Metrics
Metrics are agreed-upon measures used to evaluate how well the organization is progressing toward the portfolio, large solution, program, and team’s business and technical objectives.
Thanks to its work physics, timeboxes, and fast feedback, Agile is inherently more measurable than its proxy-based predecessor, the waterfall process. Moreover, with Agile, the “system always runs.” So, the best measure comes directly from the objective evaluation of the working system. Continuous delivery and DevOps practices provide even more things to measure. All other measures—even the extensive set of Lean-Agile metrics outlined below—are secondary to the overriding goal of focusing on rapid delivery of quality, working Solutions.
But metrics are indeed important in the enterprise context. To that end, SAFe provides guidance for various metrics that can be applied for each level of the Framework. The links below navigate to the entries on this page.
Portfolio Metrics
Lean Portfolio Metrics
The set of Lean portfolio metrics provided here is an example of a comprehensive but Lean group of measures that can be used to assess internal and external progress for an entire portfolio. In the spirit of “the simplest set of measures that can possibly work,” Figure 1 provides the leanest that a few Lean-Agile portfolios are using effectively to evaluate the overall performance of their transformations.
Portfolio Kanban Board
The primary purpose of the Portfolio Kanban board is to ensure that Epics are weighed and analyzed prior to reaching a Program Increment (PI) boundary. This way, they can be prioritized appropriately and have established acceptance criteria to guide a high-fidelity implementation. Further, the business and enabler epics can then be tracked to understand which are being worked on and which have been completed.
Epic Burn-Up Chart
The epic burn-up chart tracks progress toward an epic’s completion. There are three measures:
- Initial epic estimate line (blue) – Estimated Story points from the lean business case
- Work completed line (red) – Actual story points rolled up from the epic’s child Features and stories
- Cumulative work completed line (green) – Cumulative story points completed and rolled up from the epic’s child features and stories
These are illustrated in Figure 2.
Epic Progress Measure
The epic progress measure provides an at-a-glance view of the status of all epics in a portfolio.
- Epic X – Represents the name of the epic; business epics are blue, and enabler epics are red
- Bar length – Represents the total current estimated story points for an epic’s child features/stories; the dark green shaded area represents the actual story points completed; the light green shaded area depicts the total story points that are in progress
- Vertical red line – Represents the initial epic estimate, in story points, from the Lean business case
- 0000 / 0000 – The first number represents the current estimated story points, rolled up from the epic’s child features/stories; the second number represents the initial epic estimate (same as the red line)
These measures are depicted in Figure 3.
Enterprise Balanced Scorecard
The enterprise balanced scorecard provides four perspectives to measure performance for each portfolio—although the popularity of this approach has been declining over time in favor of Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), as shown in Figure 1. These measures are:
- Efficiency
- Value delivery
- Quality
- Agility
These results are then mapped into an executive dashboard, as illustrated in Figures 4 and 5.
For more on this approach, see chapter 22 of Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises [2].
Lean Portfolio Management Self-Assessment
The Lean Portfolio Management team continuously assesses and improves their methods. This is often done through a structured, periodic self-assessment process. When the LPM team completes the spreadsheet, which you can download below, it will automatically produce a radar chart like the one shown in Figure 6, highlighting relative strengths and weaknesses.
Download Portfolio Self-Assessment
Large Solution Metrics
Solution Kanban Board
The primary purpose of the Solution Kanban board is to ensure that Capabilities are reviewed and analyzed prior to reaching a PI boundary. This way, they can be prioritized appropriately, using established acceptance criteria to guide a high-fidelity implementation. Further, the features can then be tracked to understand which are being worked on and which have been completed.
Solution Train Predictability Measure
To assess the predictability of the Solution Train, individual measures for an Agile Release Train (ART) can be aggregated to create a solution train predictability measure, as illustrated in Figure 7.
Solution Train Performance Metrics
To assess the performance of the solution train, individual performance measures for an ART can be aggregated to create a set of solution train performance metrics, as illustrated in Figure 8.
Program Metrics
Feature Progress Report
The feature progress report tracks the status of features and enablers during PI execution. It indicates which features are on track or behind at any point in time. The chart has two bars:
- Plan – Represents the total number of stories planned for a feature.
- Actual – Represents the number of stories completed for a feature. The bar is shaded red or green, depending on whether or not the feature is on track.
Figure 9 gives an example of a feature progress report.
Program Kanban Board
The primary purpose of the Program Kanban board is to ensure that features are reviewed and analyzed prior to reaching a PI boundary. This way they can be prioritized appropriately, with established acceptance criteria to guide a high-fidelity implementation. Further, the features can be tracked to understand which are being worked on and which have been completed, as well as to track the performance of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
Program Predictability Measure
To assess the overall predictability of the release train, the team PI performance report aggregates all teams on the train to calculate the program predictability measure, as illustrated in Figure 10.
The report compares actual business value achieved to planned business value (see Figure 22).
For more on this approach, see chapter 15 of Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise [1].
Program Performance Metrics
The end of each PI is a natural and significant measuring point. Figure 11 shows a set of performance metrics for a program.
PI Burn-Down Chart
The PI burn-down chart shows the progress being made toward the PI timebox. It’s used to track the work planned for a PI against the work that has been accepted.
- The horizontal axis of the PI burn-down chart shows the Iterations within the PI
- The vertical axis shows the amount of work, in story points, remaining at the start of each iteration
Figure 12 exemplifies a train’s burn-down measure.
Although the PI burn-down shows the progress being made toward the PI timebox, it does not reveal which features may or may not be delivered during the PI. The feature progress report provides that information (refer to Figure 9).
Cumulative Flow Diagram
The Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is made up of a series of lines or areas that show the amount of work in different steps progressively in a Value Stream. For example, the typical steps of the program Kanban are:
- Funnel
- Analyzing
- Backlog
- Implementing
- Validating on staging
- Deploying to production
- Releasing
- Done
In the cumulative flow diagram in Figure 13, the number of features in each step is plotted for each day in the chart.
Agile Release Train Self-Assessment
As program execution is a core value of SAFe, the Agile release train continuously works to improve its performance. The self-assessment form, which you can download below, can be used for this purpose at PI boundaries or any time the team wants to pause and assess their organization and practices. Trending this data over time is a key performance indicator. Figure 14 gives an example of the results on a self-assessment radar chart.
Download Agile Release Train Assessment
Continuous Delivery Pipeline Efficiency
This metric weighs the different steps of the continuous delivery pipeline coming from the program or solution Kanban. It evaluates the efficiency of each by measuring the relationship between touch time and wait time. It can become the foundation for value stream mapping. Some of the information can be taken from tools, especially around Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment, while some of the other data might need to be logged manually in a spreadsheet. In the case of manual data, provide an estimate of the average touch and wait times.
Deployments and Releases per Timebox
This metric is meant to demonstrate whether the program is making progress toward deploying and releasing more frequently. It can be viewed on a PI basis, as shown in Figure 16.
Or we can zoom in to see how releases are handled in mid-PI, as shown in Figure 17.
Recovery over Time
This measures the number of rollbacks that occurred either physically or by turning off feature toggles. It overlays this data with a point in time where we deployed to production, or released into production, to see how these relate to needs for rollback.
Innovation Accounting and Leading Indicators
One of the major goals of the continuous delivery pipeline is to enable the organization to run experiments quickly to allow end customers to validate hypotheses. As a result, both Minimal Marketable Features (MMFs) and Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) must have a definition of the leading indicators for the business outcomes of those hypotheses (see the Epic article for more details). This permits measurement using real innovation accounting instead of vanity metrics.
In most enterprises, such leading indicators will reoccur. So it’s important to monitor them continuously, as well as overlay the results with the timing of releases of the different features.
Figure 19 shows some metrics that were gathered from the SAFe website to demonstrate leading indicators for our development efforts.
Hypotheses Tested over Time
A major goal of hypothesis-driven development is to create small experiments that are validated as soon as possible by customers or their proxies. The metric in Figure 20 shows how many hypotheses were validated in a PI and how many of them failed.
In an environment of quick testing (see [3] for more information), a high failure rate is actually a good thing, as it allows the team to rapidly identify, validate, and focus on the good ideas.
Team Metrics
Iteration Metrics
The end of each iteration is the time for each Agile Team to collect the iteration metrics they’ve agreed upon. This occurs in the quantitative part of the team retrospective. One team’s metrics set is illustrated in Figure 21.
Team Kanban Board
A Team Kanban process evolution is iterative. The team’s bottlenecks should surface after defining the initial process steps (ex., define, analyze, review, build, integrate, test) and Work in Process (WIP) limits, and after executing for a while. If not, the team refines the states or further reduces the WIP until it becomes obvious which state is ‘starving’ or is too full, helping the team adjust toward a more optimum flow.
Team PI Performance Report
During the PI System Demo, the business owners, customers, Agile teams, and other key stakeholders rate the actual business value (BV) achieved for each team’s PI Objectives as shown in Figure 22.
Reliable trains should generally operate in the 80 – 100 percent range; this allows the business and its outside stakeholders to plan effectively. Below are some important notes about how the report works:
- The Planned total BV does not include stretch objectives to help the reliability of the train
- The actual total BV does include stretch objectives
- The achievement percentage is calculated by dividing the actual BV total by the planned BV total (actual BV ÷ planned BV)
- A team can achieve greater than 100 percent (as a result of stretch objectives achieved)
- The effort required for stretch objectives is included in the iteration plan’s load (that is, it is not extra work the team does on weekends)
Individual team totals are rolled up into the program predictability measure (see Figure 10).
SAFe Team Self-Assessment
Agile teams continuously assess and improve their methodology. This is often done through a structured, periodic self-assessment process. This gives the team time to reflect on and discuss the key practices that help yield results. One such tool is a simple SAFe team practices assessment, as appears in this spreadsheet: When the team completes the spreadsheet, it will automatically produce a radar chart like the one shown in Figure 23, which highlights relative strengths and weaknesses.
Learn More
[1] Leffingwell, Dean. Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise. Addison-Wesley, 2011.
[2] Leffingwell, Dean. Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises. Addison-Wesley, 2007.
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOjPpeBh40s
Last update: 19 October, 2017