How Do Teams Know if They Are Being Agile?

Agile favors different measurements that matter to the team and to management—those that focus on
customer value.

For teams using a predictive approach, “percent done” can be an intuitive tool for talking about project
progress and activity. Team members, project sponsors and external stakeholders alike all understand
the shorthand, and it’s a handy gauge for quickly indicating momentum toward the finish line. But “80%
done” with 20% of the schedule left is no guarantee that the project will finish on time—a phenomenon
many agile practitioners call “watermelon projects,” in which the status looks green externally but on
the inside is bright red.

For teams using agile, that so-so measurement falls flat. Agile measures what the team delivers, not
what the team predicts it will deliver. To get the most out of agile, teams must shift to metrics that focus
on customer value—like finished features. But there’s also a qualitative component to consider, such as
how well the team is using agile practices, the team’s morale and the business’ satisfaction with
delivered features.

“I’m always amazed at how well people can track productivity or deviate from the estimation, but we
often neglect the soft metrics, such as the impact of a high workload on team morale or stakeholder
confidence,” says Amber McMillan, PMP, executive director, Rogers Society, Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada. Yet it does the team—and the project—a disservice to discount those softer measurements,
indicates Ms. McMillan, as those can have an outsized impact on the team’s delivery. “As digital
transformation pushes us all farther into automation and AI, people skills will continue to be our
greatest metric,” she says.

When choosing metrics to measure how well the team is taking an agile approach, explains Ms.
McMillan, make sure they’re tracked at the team level. “Agile is a team sport,” she says, and reflecting
individual components erodes that team cohesion. She makes it a point to also examine relationships
within the team, such as how respectful team members are in communications with one another and in
daily standups, and how open and forthcoming individuals feel comfortable being. Respect and
transparency are foundational to an agile approach, and if the team shies away from either behavior it
should raise a red flag.

Finally, Ms. McMillan is a fan of asking one tough question for teams transitioning to agile: Do we have
the humility to admit where we could have done better and fix it? “If team members are defensive with
stakeholders, they’re not being agile,” she says. “But if they can use the tough spots as a catalyst for the
next change, they’re on their way to being agile. And if they can take failure and use it as fuel to fire the
next iteration, they’re being agile.”

Developed by PMI for PMIstandards+™ with contributions from Amber McMillan, PMP. ©PROJECT
MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, INC.