Talk: Risk-Reduction Metrics for Agile Organizations

Join us at the Lean Kanban North America 2014 conference. I will be speaking on the Managing Risk Track, May 7, 2014 from 2:20pm to 3:45pm.

Agile and lean processes make it easier for organizations to measure company and team performance, assess risk and opportunity, and adapt. My colleagues and I have used delivery rate, concept-to-cash lead-time, architectural foresight, specialist dependency, forecast horizon and experiment invalidation rate to identify risk, and focus risk-reduction and learning efforts. With greater knowledge, we can eliminate low-opportunity options early and more deeply explore higher-opportunity options to maximize value. We have used these metrics to diagnose agility problems in teams and organizations, to motivate groups to improve, to assess coaching contributions, and to decide where to spend coaching resources. We face many problems in using measurement and feedback to drive change. Manager misuse or misunderstanding of metrics can lead organizations to get worse. Teams or people that mistrust or misunderstand managers often game metrics. And yet, what we can’t measure, we can’t manage. So part of a successful metrics program must involve creating and sustaining a collaborative, trusting and trustworthy culture.