Welcome back to our ‘Mastering SAFe®’ series! We’re continuing below with our 3rd installment; you can start from the beginning with Part one and Part two.
“How are we really doing?”
When someone says, “Everything is fine,” is it really fine, or should we conjure images of the cartoon with the dog drinking coffee surrounded by flames? The ambiguity can be halting, and it’s time for a better answer.
Objective measures provide an unbiased assessment of whether goals and intended outcomes are being met. They allow teams to track progress, identify improvement areas, and measure change impacts. By definition, objective measures are quantitative and measure concrete data or facts.
The Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) recommends 2 types of objective measures: demos and metrics.
Introduction to SAFe
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a widely adopted methodology for implementing Agile and Lean principles in large, complex organizations. Developed by Dean Leffingwell, SAFe provides a structured approach to scaling Agile development and delivery, enabling businesses to respond quickly to changing market conditions and customer needs. With over 20,000 enterprises and 1,000,000 practitioners worldwide, SAFe has become a leading framework for achieving business agility.
The Importance of Objective Measurement in SAFe
Objective measurement is a critical component of SAFe, enabling teams to make data-driven decisions and drive continuous improvement. By using objective measurements, teams can evaluate progress, identify areas for improvement, and adjust their approach accordingly. In SAFe, objective measurement assesses team performance, product quality, and customer satisfaction. This data is then used to inform decision-making and drive improvements in the development process.
Objective measurement is essential in SAFe because it provides a common language and set of metrics that can be used across teams and organizations. This enables teams to compare their performance and identify best practices, which can be shared and adopted across the organization. Additionally, objective measurement helps to reduce the impact of human judgment and bias, ensuring that decisions are based on facts rather than opinions.
In SAFe, objective measurement is used in a variety of ways, including:
- Measuring team velocity and productivity
- Tracking product quality and defect rates
- Assessing customer satisfaction and feedback
- Evaluating the effectiveness of Agile practices and processes
By using objective measurement, teams can gain a deeper understanding of their performance and identify areas for improvement. This enables them to make data-driven decisions and drive continuous improvement, which is critical for achieving business agility.
Demos
A demonstration of working software is the most objective way to determine whether the work meets the intended goals. It’s not a Confluence page with checkmarks next to a list of requirements; a demo is an exact implementation on display for everyone to review.
As a part of the SAFe® cadence, delivery teams will show completed functionality to stakeholders for approval and feedback before releasing it to customers. Demos should happen frequently, often aligning with the Iteration cadence. They’re best done when the environment is as similar as possible to the production environment, where customers will eventually interact with the product so that feedback is as specific as possible.
Objective Measurements
Measurements of the delivery system allow teams to know how the system is operating and make informed decisions about adjustments. The information collected through these metrics must integrate subjective and objective data streams to form a comprehensive assessment.
There are 3 main areas SAFe® recommends. Validity refers to whether these measurements accurately reflect the intended outcomes and the underlying scientific questions.
1. Flow of Work Through the System
Flow metrics focus on how work moves through the system. They help teams understand how well their processes are supporting the continuous delivery of value to customers. Teams use these metrics to optimize their processes, balance work, and improve their processes.
SAFe recommends its six flow metrics:
- Flow Velocity: Number of work items completed in a period
- Flow Time: Time it takes for a work item to be completed
- Flow Load: Number of work items in progress at any given point in time
- Flow Distribution: Types of work items in progress or to be completed in a period
- Flow Efficiency: Time spent on value-added work while in progress
- Flow Predictability: Historical data to understand delivery consistency over time
These metrics must repeatedly capture the same information during assessments to ensure consistency and reliability.
2. Output of the System
The outputs of the delivery system indicate whether the work being completed by the system meets business objectives.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are objective, measurable numbers that identify how well a company, project, or team is performing. They are usually linked to long-term strategic goals and provide insight into performance.
Examples include:
- Revenue goals
- Engagement goals
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR)
- Defect rate
Integrating patient inputs with these objective metrics provides a more comprehensive understanding of performance and outcomes.
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a goal-setting framework to help define objectives and then create objective measures of the outcomes. The Objective is the goal, and the Key Results are the measurable actions defining the objective’s success. An example of an OKR would look like:
- Objective: Increase product adoption
- Key Result 1: Increase new active users by 20% by the end of Q2.
- Key Result 2: Launch 3 new features requested by users by EOY.
3. System Performance
These measurements ensure the system is optimized for business agility. SAFe® provides self-assessments based on the 7 Core Competencies to help organizations measure and focus on growth:
- Organizational Agility
- Lean Portfolio Management
- Enterprise Solution Delivery
- Agile Product Delivery
- Team and Technical Agility
- Continuous Learning Culture
- Lean-Agile Leadership
Wearable devices can provide continuous data on system performance, enhancing the understanding of health metrics beyond traditional assessments.
At TMG, we’ve found that teams become personally invested in the goal and the team’s ability to deliver when an organization has defined metrics visible to everyone. Metrics create conversations around optimizations and improvements, focusing on the data rather than pointing fingers. Teams focus on solutions that can be delivered to customers and how the team operates.
Once metrics are defined and the mechanisms to capture them are set up, a company can move quickly from quarter to quarter, knowing which areas need focus.
The hardest part can be deciding what to measure and how to measure it. Need help defining your organization’s metrics? Let’s talk!
