How do you know whether your Agile trans­for­ma­tion is on the right track, or head­ing in the right direc­tion? Under­stand­ing Agile trans­for­ma­tion met­rics for exec­u­tives is key to prov­ing the ROI of your Agile transformation.

Tra­di­tion­al busi­ness prac­tices are orga­nized around the plan­ning and deliv­ery of out­puts. Met­rics, there­fore, are indi­ca­tors of how well, or how effi­cient­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion is plan­ning and deliv­er­ing those out­puts. KPIs are the most com­mon­ly used types of met­rics – lag­ging indi­ca­tors that tell the sto­ry of what has already hap­pened. The OKRs frame­work exists to encour­age align­ment between var­i­ous parts and lev­els of the orga­ni­za­tion through­out your Agile transformation.

Use the fol­low­ing list of Agile trans­for­ma­tion met­rics for exec­u­tives as inspi­ra­tion, to help you gain a more accu­rate pic­ture of your Agile trans­for­ma­tion, both as it’s hap­pen­ing and as it evolves over time.

Employ­ee engage­ment: Are your employ­ees feel­ing moti­vat­ed, pro­duc­tive, and sat­is­fied in their roles? Reg­u­lar­ly, anony­mous­ly mea­sur­ing your employ­er Net Pro­mot­er Score can give you insight into employ­ee engagement.

Con­tin­u­ous improve­ment: Is your Agile trans­for­ma­tion help­ing to facil­i­tate con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in your process­es, prac­tices, and com­pa­ny cul­ture? If so, you should see pos­i­tive changes in prod­uct qual­i­ty, safe­ty, speed, cus­tomer and employ­ee satisfaction.

Inno­va­tion: Are all these changes actu­al­ly help­ing your orga­ni­za­tion become more inno­v­a­tive? There are many ways to mea­sure this: Num­ber of new prod­ucts, time to mar­ket for new prod­ucts, cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, and time spent on high-val­ue/in­no­v­a­tive products.

Cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion: Cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion can be mea­sured through qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive means, includ­ing cus­tomer sur­veys, rev­enue, cus­tomer life­time val­ue, repeat pur­chas­es, etc.

Mar­ket respon­sive­ness: Is your Agile trans­for­ma­tion actu­al­ly mak­ing your orga­ni­za­tion more agile – bet­ter equipped to respond and adapt to mar­ket changes? This can be mea­sured through time to mar­ket, lead and cycle times, and oth­er speed metrics.

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty: Is your Agile trans­for­ma­tion mak­ing your teams more pro­duc­tive? Not by sheer out­put, but by the out­put of val­ue cre­at­ed. What per­cent of projects com­plet­ed were of high val­ue? How effi­cient­ly are teams able to cre­ate val­ue for customers?

Speed: Speed met­rics should be used to mea­sure the deliv­ery of val­ue, as well as mar­ket respon­sive­ness. They should not be used as van­i­ty met­rics to mea­sure the exe­cu­tion of low-val­ue outputs.

Qual­i­ty: Is your Agile trans­for­ma­tion help­ing your orga­ni­za­tion cre­ate more val­ue with less waste? Qual­i­ty can be mea­sured by mea­sur­ing defects, rework, and waste.

Pre­dictabil­i­ty: Final­ly, is your Agile trans­for­ma­tion help­ing your teams deliv­er more pre­dictably? Pre­dictabil­i­ty is a mea­sure of how accu­rate­ly your teams can plan, exe­cute, and deliv­er work in the expect­ed time frame.