As it turns out there are many types of metrics in play. Some are quite dated & stale while some are fresh, modern & illuminating. Some should be embraced while some should be avoided at all costs. Here we wanted to explain the high-level differences between the various types of metrics and which you should care most about.
We are only doing an overview here for comparison purposes. Where appropriate there are links to addition resources for deeper explanation.
Agile Metrics
Flow Metrics
These metrics are essential to showing how value flows from inception to delivery.
Example(s):
- Flow Time – Elapsed time from when work started to being finished
- Flow Load – Quantity of work items in progress or waiting
- Flow Efficiency – Ratio of effort applied that adds value
- Flow Velocity – Quantity of completed work items over a period
- Flow Distribution – Reveals the proportion of work item types delivered
- Flow Predictability (SAFe added) – Consistency in delivering on commitments
North Star Framework Metrics
The North Star Metric is a single all-powerful guide capable of driving all that you do. Regardless of your function within the company it drives your purpose for doing what you are (or ought to be) doing. You your North Star can change for various reasons, but the best reason obviously would be that you reached the goal and are ready to run with the next one.
A good North Star is just out of reach and cannot be directly influenced by anything that you do. Instead, you have several inputs or secondary metrics that can and do influence the North Star. As a result, reaching the North Star is accomplished only when all or most of the supporting secondary metrics are achieved.
Example(s):
- Primary North Star: Total time spent listening to music
- Secondary Input: Reduced actions from discovery to play
- Secondary Input: Increased personal relevance
- Secondary Input: ???
Dora Metrics
Dora metrics were born from and support DevOps initiatives. These have more to do with the things that happen after a team has produced a new feature. Some upstream activities within the development teams can affect these metrics. Ideally with higher levels of maturity and capability the development teams are on the hook for deployments, so these become very impactful.
Examples:
- Deployment Frequency – an indicator of overall DevOps efficiency
- Mean lead time for changes – the time it takes to deliver deployment ready code into production
- Mean time to recover – indicated how quickly you can recover from an outage or incident.
- Change failure rate – indicates the rate at which breaking changes were introduced and deployed causing outages or rework.
Vanity Metrics
These metrics might make you feel good in the short term but, do little to indicate real success or progress over the long haul. These might move up or down as a result of other activities, but we can do much better.
Example(s):
- Daily Active Users
- Ad Impressions
- Number of downloads
- Page views
- Registered users
- Story points delivered
- Time on page
Business Metrics
These are often well known but may lofty and difficult to translate to the individual team level. It is not uncommon for these to not be well communicated across the company. Transparency is key so that the various teams involved are able to use this guidance to drive how they work or what they do in order to contribute to the overall success.
Example(s):
- Increase Sales
- Reduce Product Support Calls
- Reduce costs
- Increase performance
- Reduce turnover
- Expand to new product lines
- Dominate the market
Proxy Metrics
Proxy metrics tend to not be directly connected to business metrics or any of the others. Their value & relevance may depend on the situation to which they are applied.
Example(s):
- Percent of team members trained in Scrum
- Lines of code created
- Deployments per day
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
OKRs vs KPIs vs BFDs
Then you have these others that represent different methods but might be involved in other groups above.
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) – Ambitions goals designed to increase engagement and alignment across and org.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – A reality check for measuring performance.
- Big F%&@ing Deals (BFDs) – Follows the formula of OKR+KPI=BFD. This is not a real thing just checking to see if you are paying attention.
Conclusion
A North Star Metric is your absolute best friend for focus alignment and clarity to execute anything quickly & efficiently. The North Star won’t steer you wrong, but you do need to take great care to define it properly else it might. Beyond that everyone in the company needs to know it and understand how their work relates.
That said, if you need more metric friends, then hang out with Flow Metrics which are compatible and complimentary with both North Star and Dora. The other metrics may have a place depending on where you are, what you are doing and where you are headed. Just be careful because the wrong metrics can consume a lot of energy and may not result in the expected return on investment.
Contact us to book a free consultation session to learn more about how the right metrics can improve your flow and reduce business risks.