Category: efficiency

Measuring velocity is not enough to determine team productivity

June 20, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

Another interesting question was brought up in a LinkedIn discussion thread this week: "Is velocity the right approach to measure productivity of team members working in Scrum. If not, then how can productivity of team members be measured in Scrum?" Here are my thought on this topic.

The purpose of velocity

Like burndown charts, velocity is just another metric which the team can use to reach what I believe is the ultimate goal – sustainable throughput. Velocity in my opinion, is not a metric for determining productivity. Productivity or team efficiency is difficult to measure and probably best left for another blog post.

Are you efficient or effective?

May 28, 2009 by Mendelt Siebenga

Efficiency and effectiveness are two words that are often used interchangeably. Many methodologies promise 'increased efficiency and effectiveness'. I find this strange because in a rapidly changing environment like software engineering these two are often mutually exclusive. I think in order to understand agility it’s important to understand the differences between these two and the tradeoffs you are making between them.

"Stop Starting and Start Finishing" - A successful Lean philosophy

May 15, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction
One of the killers on software development projects is Work-In-Progress. We have learned from the Lean experts and from the teachings on the Toyota Production System that too much work-in-progress is a liability. Just yesterday I was asked to spot the problem with a sister company's task board. Sure enough one developer had 5 or 6 "in-progress" tasks on the task board. It took me a split second to notice.

Productivity
The problem with this situation is that as a developer if you're working on more than two tasks, simultaneously your productivity takes a dive. Additionally you're going to end up with many unfinished tasks that never get completed. This is a classic problem in Waterfall where tasks have half-lives are in the order of man months. The more tasks in play at any given time, the more tasks that never get finished.