Agility is certainly a popular buzzword and something you will probably hear when you are studying professional project management. You might learn that the practice of agile project management means you have the ability to respond to changes and problems in a highly effective way. Agile is what every project manager wants their team to be but not everyone knows how to achieve this. Measuring agility within a projetc team is a good place to start.
If you want to measure your agility then it is important that you ensure you have reviewed exactly what being agile actually means. You can also look at ways in which you can increase your agility because there is always room for improvement.
Why should you measure your agility?
Metrics are essential if you want to know how Agile your company or team are and how you can improve agility. Frequently tracking everything will help you to see exactly what is going on all the time
Demonstrate ROI
Training providers such as Parallel Project Training believe it is very important to remember is that the metrics that you collect will assist you in proving how successful your business Agile programme has been through ROI to your executives and stakeholders. This is an essential metric to follow closely and one that you should be using in order to help support your organisation in the direction it is looking to move.
Establish baseline measurement
Sometimes referred to as baselining, a baseline measurement is a way of creating a starting point for any metric or process that will help you determine your impact or improvement. This will show you just how successful you have been with your initiatives within the project. The baseline allows you to compare any results from before the process change to those from after it.
Build a case for business and get buy-ins from stakeholders
For the success of your organisation, you need to build credibility with stakeholders. Whether you are looking to create a new initiative from the very beginning or build on something that is already underway it is particularly important to ensure that you establish value from the very beginning. When you track metrics like cycle time, effectiveness and throughput, you are making a business case that is compelling and will be of benefit to your projects.
So how do you measure your agility?
Metrics are important for measuring your agility and the only ones that you need to be worried about are those that give you the information that helps you make decisions and improve your processes. These are just a few of those essential indicators that can assist you in determining your business agility success:
- Speed of the process (cycle time)
- Velocity
- Efficiency of the process
- Rate of completion via throughput
- Internal stakeholder and employee happiness
- Outcomes over outputs
When you track these types of metrics it is essential to link them to any outcome that they produce. This allows you to see the bigger picture in order to determine how the internal process metrics that you use affect any impact that you have been able to make externally to the team.