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Metrics is a very hot topic. Managing and measuring Agile projects are particularly challenging. For this month's issue of the Agile Journal, we received so many abstracts for articles that it was difficult to choose only a few. So we bent our own rules a bit and accepted a larger number of articles, addressing a wide range of ideas and best practices. I guess this is a great problem to have and I hope you appreciate the wealth of experiences!
I just returned from the IBM Rational Users' Conference where, along with around 2300 participants, I tried to absorb as much as possible from others' development practices and success factors. Without question, the challenge of measuring and communicating the value of software initiatives was one of the most daunting. I'll share a few interesting ideas that I learned in my article.
Our contributors this month bring a wealth of knowledge in the area of metrics and measurement. Some articles are complementary. Some are a bit controversial. We'll leave it to you to chime in with your opinions. But all of our contributors agree that there's much to do to be able to measure and manage an Agile project in today's competitive market.
To frame this broad topic, Ross Pettit has developed a lightweight maturity model to help teams plot a course for continuous adoption and improvement of Agile practices. Robert Holler discusses the five aspects he feels are most important to Agile project success: courage, context, course, cadence and cost. Amr Elssamadisy and Ashley Johnson examine the rhythms common to Agile projects: releases, iterations, stand-up meetings, continuous integration and the red-green-red test cycle of a developer. And Dharmesh Mistry and Siddhesh Navelkar assert that the only way to succeed with Agile practices on large offshore projects is to selectively adopt practices and metrics alongside more traditional techniques.
For those looking for specific metrics examples, Dan Rawsthorne drills down into the importance of computing and communicating the "Earned Business Value" of an Agile team's deliverables. Dean Leffingwell explores metrics for both the quantitative and qualitative sides of iteration and release retrospectives. Kirk Knoernschild argues for the importance of code quality, design and code coverage metrics and provides a detailed example of how and when to use these metrics. And Mark Ringer demonstrates the value of iteration metrics in diagnosing project progress and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
As always, we'd love your input on this tough topic. Feel free to query our authors or start a discussion of your own. This is a topic that we'll return to on a regular basis. If you would like to contribute an article on this or another upcoming topic, go to the "Letters to the Editor" in the forum at AgileJournal.com.
Liz Barnett
Editor in Chief
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