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Metrics and Learning

Harnessing data and insights to foster ongoing enhancement in team dynamics and operational workflows.

Using data, metrics, and feedback to drive continuous improvement in teams and processes.

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https://nkdagility.com/resources/metrics-and-learning/

Overview

Metrics and Learning is a vital concept that focuses on leveraging data, metrics, and feedback to foster continuous improvement within teams and processes. This approach enables organisations to make informed decisions based on empirical evidence rather than assumptions, thereby enhancing their ability to deliver value predictably and sustainably. By systematically collecting and analysing performance metrics, teams can identify areas for improvement, track progress over time, and adapt their strategies to meet evolving customer needs.

The emphasis on learning through metrics cultivates a culture of experimentation and responsiveness, allowing teams to pivot quickly in response to feedback. This long-term, systemic approach not only drives immediate enhancements but also builds a foundation for ongoing development and innovation. Unlike other concepts that may focus on specific methodologies or frameworks, Metrics and Learning is inherently enabling, as it empowers teams to take ownership of their performance and outcomes. This self-directed learning process is crucial for maintaining agility in a rapidly changing environment, ensuring that organisations remain competitive and relevant. By embedding metrics into the fabric of daily operations, teams can create a feedback loop that continuously informs their practices and strategies, ultimately leading to more effective and resilient product development.

Learn More about Metrics and Learning

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Evidence Based Management

Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is a strategy for improving an organisation’s ability to deliver value by making decisions based on evidence, not opinion. It enables data-informed investment in agility, innovation, and outcomes rather than output.
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Service Level Expectation

A Service Level Expectation predicts how long work items take to complete, helping Scrum Teams improve workflow, identify issues, and set clear delivery timelines.
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Unrealised Value

Unrealized Value is one of the four key value areas of Evidence‑Based Management and represents a group of measures focused on the potential value that could be captured with further improvements. Instead of being a single metric, it includes various indicators that assess untapped opportunities, such as latent market demand or areas for innovation. These combined measures offer insight into how much additional value remains available for the organization.
Videos

Evidence-Based Management: The Four Key Value Areas in Scrum

Explains Scrum’s four key value areas—current value, unrealised value, ability to innovate, and time to market—for data-driven product and organisational improvement.
Blog

Metrics that matter with evidence-based management

Discover how Evidence-Based Management can enhance your metrics and KPIs for better decision-making in software development. Elevate your team’s performance!
Videos

Transforming Waste into Value: How to Boost ROI with Agile Metrics

Learn how agile metrics like innovation rate, product index, usage index, and version adoption help identify waste and improve ROI by focusing on value-driven engineering.
Videos

Mastering Evidence-Based Management for Agile Success

Learn how Evidence-Based Management uses data to guide Agile teams, improve decision-making, track value, and boost innovation, customer satisfaction, and time to market.
Guides

The Evidence-Based Management Guide: Improving Value Delivery under Conditions of Uncertainty

Discover more about “The Evidence-Based Management Guide and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
Blog

Evidence-based Management: Gathering the metrics

Explains how to gather key metrics for evidence-based management in software organisations, focusing on value delivery, time to market, and ability to innovate.
Guides

The Evidence-Based Management Guide Improving Value Delivery under Conditions of Uncertainty

Discover more about The Evidence-Based Management Guide
Videos

Mastering Evidence-Based Management in Agile: Inform, Don’t Control

Explains how to use data in Agile management to guide decisions and behaviours, focusing on informed outcomes without letting metrics control teams or stifle value delivery.
Videos

Harnessing Evidence-Based Management: Transform Your Decision-Making with Data-Driven Insights

Learn how evidence-based management uses data and purposeful metrics to inform decisions, shape behaviours, and drive continuous improvement in organisations.
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Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement is the ongoing practice of relentless reflection and adaptation, driven by empirical evidence, aimed at consistently enhancing processes, products, and team effectiveness. It embodies a commitment to incremental and measurable advancements, fostering a culture of proactive experimentation, rapid feedback, and learning to achieve sustainable and strategic business agility.
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Lead Time

Measuring the time from work initiation to customer delivery, helping teams monitor workflow efficiency and improve value delivery.
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    Forecasting

    Enhance forecasting in Agile and Scrum. Use empirical data to predict delivery timelines, manage risk, and optimise value delivery.
    Course

    Professional Agile Leadership - Evidence-Based Management (PAL-EBM)

    Scrum.org created the Evidence-Based Management™ (EBM) framework which is an Agile approach to help leaders guide their teams toward continuously improving customer outcomes, organizational capabilities, and business results. EBM focuses on customer value and intentional experimentation to systematically improve an organization’s performance and achieve its strategic goals.
    Blog

    Stop Hiding Behind Complexity and Start Delivering Continuously

    Continuous delivery is achievable for any software, regardless of complexity. Success depends on investment in automation, quality, and process improvement—not technical barriers.
    Videos

    Transforming Agility: How Azure DevOps Went from Two-Year Releases to 880,000 Deployments

    Explores how Azure DevOps shifted from slow, two-year releases to rapid, continuous delivery, highlighting the benefits of fast feedback, agility, and frequent deployments.
    Videos

    Maximising Deployment Frequency: The Key to Faster Time to Market and Business Success

    Explores how increasing deployment frequency, stable environments, and fast feedback loops improve software delivery, reduce time to market, and align with business goals.
    Videos

    The Problem with Incompetent Scrum Masters: Why Lack of Skills in Team Context Results in Poor ROI

    Incompetent Scrum Masters reduce team performance and ROI by lacking key skills. Learn how to measure their impact using innovation, usage, and delivery metrics.
    Practices

    Metrics and Reports

    Discover more about Metrics and Reports and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
    Blog

    Deciphering the Enigma of Story Points Across Teams

    Explains why Story Points are subjective and unsuitable for comparing teams, and highlights objective metrics like throughput and value for measuring and improving team performance.
    Videos

    Illuminate Your Workflow: Harnessing Candan Strategies for Continuous Improvement and Transparency

    Learn how Candan strategies use flow metrics and transparency to reveal workflow issues, drive continuous improvement, and support data-driven decision-making in teams.
    Blog

    Why Measuring Individual Cycle Time is Killing Your Flow (And What to Do Instead)

    Measuring individual cycle time in Kanban misleads teams, hides real bottlenecks, and harms flow. Focus on system-wide metrics like PCE, WIP, and throughput instead.
    Videos

    The Power of Metrics: Why PAL-EBM is Essential for Your Organization

    Learn how evidence-based metrics drive organisational success, avoid negative behaviours, and enable transparent, data-driven decisions for leaders and teams at all levels.
    Blog

    What my father taught me about Evidence-based Management (34 years before it was invented!)

    Discover how my father’s insights on Evidence-based Management transformed a failing business 34 years before its inception. Learn to optimize value and agility!
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    Revenue per Employee

    A financial observability metric showing how much revenue is generated per employee, used to inspect workforce efficiency and strategic alignment over time.
      Videos

      Mastering Product Development Costs: Empower Your Team for Financial Success

      Learn how to track, manage, and optimise product development costs by empowering teams with financial awareness, key metrics, and continuous improvement for better outcomes.
      Videos

      What is empiricism and why is it so critical to great Agile?

      Explains how empiricism—continuous observation, inspection, and adaptation—drives Agile success by enabling teams to respond effectively to real project data and feedback.
      Videos

      The Importance of Validation in Product Development: A Strategic Approach

      Explains why validating product features is essential, highlighting hypothesis-driven development, data collection, and evidence-based decisions to maximise long-term product value.
      Videos

      Unlocking the Power of Immersive Learning for Product Management

      Explores how immersive learning in product management blends practical assignments, evidence-based metrics, and reflection to drive real organisational change and improvement.
      Videos

      Evidence-Based Management: The Key to Agile Success

      Evidence-based management uses data-driven decisions to help organisations achieve business outcomes, adapt to market changes, and maximise value beyond agile processes.
      Guides

      Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams

      Discover more about Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
      Videos

      3 best ways to wreck Kanban. Use vanity metrics.

      Learn how to avoid common Kanban mistakes by focusing on actionable metrics like WIP, cycle time, and throughput instead of vanity metrics for better workflow efficiency.
      Videos

      Understanding the Difference: Traditional Management vs. Evidence-Based Management

      Explains how traditional management relies on authority and intuition, while evidence-based management uses data, analysis, and meaningful metrics for better decisions.
      Videos

      Overview of 'applying metrics for predictability' Kanban course.

      Learn how to use Kanban metrics like cycle time and throughput to improve team predictability, make accurate forecasts, and deliver consistent project outcomes.
      Videos

      Does Kanban integrate into a Scrum environment?

      Explains how Kanban can be integrated with Scrum to improve workflow visibility, provide key metrics, and enable continuous improvement in agile teams.
      Videos

      Mastering Evidence-Based Management (EBM) for Product Owners: Maximizing Value Delivery

      Learn how product owners use Evidence-Based Management (EBM) to make data-driven decisions, track key value metrics, and maximise product value and team engagement.
      Videos

      Unlocking Business Value: The Power of Evidence-Based Management for Effective Leadership

      Explains how evidence-based management uses data-driven decisions and tailored metrics to boost business value, leadership effectiveness, and organisational innovation.
      Videos

      Harnessing the Power of Empiricism: Transform Your Decision-Making with Data-Driven Insights

      Learn how using empirical, data-driven methods can improve decision-making, foster continuous improvement, and build trust through transparent, evidence-based actions.
      Course

      Applying Flow Metrics for Scrum

      Elevate Your Scrum Mastery with ‘Applying Flow Metrics for Scrum’: Transform your Agile practices with our immersive, hands-on course. Dive deep into the world of flow metrics and emerge with the skills to enhance your team’s efficiency and delivery. Join us for a journey of practical learning and real-world application – it’s time to turn data into action!
      Course

      Applying Metrics for Predictability

      Join our immersive 8-week course to become an expert in agile metrics and forecasting. Gain the skills to predict project outcomes, reduce uncertainty, and improve your decision-making, all while learning at your own pace.
      Tags

      Value Stream Mapping

      Visualising workflows to identify inefficiencies and optimise value delivery.
        Videos

        Unlocking Continuous Improvement: How Metrics and Visual Tools Transform Your Workflow

        Learn how using key metrics and visual tools like Kanban boards drives continuous workflow improvement, transparency, and informed decision-making in teams.
        Videos

        Unlocking Continuous Improvement: How Metrics and Visualisation Drive Workflow Success

        Explores how using metrics and visual tools enhances workflow transparency, helps identify improvement areas, and supports a culture of continuous process optimisation.
        Blog

        Building a release pipeline with Release Management with Visual Studio 2013

        Learn to build a scalable release pipeline with Visual Studio 2013’s integrated release management. Enhance your DevOps practices for continuous delivery success!
        Videos

        How to Measure Your Organization's Ability to Improve Value Through Innovation

        Learn how to assess and improve your organisation’s innovation capability using evidence-based management and key metrics like technical debt, innovation rate, and complexity.
        Videos

        Maximising Product Value: The Power of Hypothesis-Driven Engineering

        Explores how hypothesis-driven engineering helps teams maximise product value by testing ideas, measuring outcomes, and learning from failure to guide investment decisions.
        Videos

        Say-Do Metrics: Avoiding Agile Banditry in Your Organization

        Explains the risks of using say-do metrics in Agile, highlighting how they encourage vanity metrics, harm psychological safety, and shift focus from outcomes to outputs.
        Blog

        How do you make a good Forecast?

        Explains how to create reliable forecasts in agile projects by using flow metrics like cycle time and throughput, and shifting from project-based to team-based budgeting.
        Videos

        The Importance of Evidence-Based Management in Agile Environments

        Explains how evidence-based management helps Agile teams use data and key metrics to measure progress, make informed decisions, and drive continuous improvement.
        Videos

        Unlocking Success: How Small Experiments Transformed Feature Delivery from 25 to 150 in Software Development

        Explores how breaking features into small experiments boosts software delivery, enabling teams to deliver more features, reduce risk, and improve customer-focused products.
        Tags

        Lean Startup

        Applying Lean principles to rapidly test and validate business ideas with minimal risk.
        Videos

        Mastering Outcomes: How Evidence-Based Management Transforms Your Project Success

        Learn how evidence-based management uses clear outcomes and targeted metrics to improve project success, enabling informed decisions and continuous improvement.
        Videos

        How long does it take to transition from project management to Kanban?

        Learn how to move from traditional project management to Kanban, including steps, benefits, and tips for a smooth, gradual transition to Agile workflows and continuous improvement.
        Videos

        How Do You Know the Value Currently Delivered in Your Organization?

        Learn how Evidence-Based Management helps organisations measure delivered value using key metrics like customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and product usage data.
        Videos

        Story Points: A Ghost of Agile Past

        Explores the problems with story points in Agile, their impact on team behaviour, and why flow metrics offer a better way to measure progress and deliver real value.
        Videos

        Unlocking Unrealised Value: The Key to Elevating Your Product Development Strategy

        Explains how identifying and validating unrealised value, understanding user needs, and rapid feedback loops can enhance product development and maximise user impact.
        Course

        Professional Product Discovery and Validation Skills (PPDV)

        This one-day course on product discovery and validation equips participants with essential hands-on skills to enhance value creation in product development. It covers key techniques for both new product development and improving existing products, focusing on experimentation, evidence collection, and risk control. Through an ongoing case study, students will learn practical methods to apply in their workplace, helping Product Owners, Managers, and teams drive customer outcomes, improve ROI, and adopt an iterative, user-centric approach to product development.
        Course

        Practicing Kanban Using Azure Boards

        All software development teams aim to enhance flow and throughput. This one-day course combines Kanban principles with Azure Boards, showing agile teams how to configure and effectively use the platform for Kanban practices. Participants will collaborate in teams on a shared project and case study to maximize learning.

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        If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.

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