Which Agile tool should you use?

After browsing through discussions on the Agile Alliance LinkedIn group this morning I came across a thread: Best SCRUM tools in the market. I posted a comment on this thread and thought it worthwhile expanding on this and sharing details of my analysis.

A while ago I did some detailed research into agile tools for managing distributed Scrum teams. There were 9 tools that I looked at in total evaluating each based on the following metrics: functionality, price, usability and scalability. For each of the tools I either created a test account or downloaded and installed a test version of the application. The top 3 tools that I came up with were : Target Process, Rally and JIRA with Greenhopper. Here is a detailed matrix containing my analysis:

* ping me your email address if you interested in the cost breakdown per user details and I will send through the full spreadsheet – andrew [at] thekeggies [dot] com:

full view

We decided to go with JIRA with Greenhopper and have been using it with our distributed teams for a couple years now…to good effect! It is an extremely affordable solution and does more than is necessary to enable teams to get things done. I have found that the Atlassian Greenhopper team listen closely to what their users are saying and have an aggressive approach product improvement and development which is encouraging. Here is some evidence.

Now don’t just dive into using an automated tool if you are just starting out with Scrum or any other Agile approach. If you have a collocated team, start off using a white board and stickies and automate once you are comfortable.

KPI’s for Agile and Scrum teams

Over the past week I have been taking some time out to research effective metrics/KPI’s and processes for measuring and tracking the performance of Scrum teams.

There are many suggested metrics all with varying degrees of complexity in terms of data tracking and calculation. My goal was to find team metrics that were easy to track and calculate – see below:

Team Performance

• Velocity – story points completed
• Goals achieved (yes/no)
• Product owner satisfied (yes/no)

“Velocity” is the most popular metric employed by Agile teams. It doesn’t always provide you with scientific accuracy but is a good indicator of progress made. The story point estimation of the product backlog upfront is a time consuming process, but worthwhile in the long run for both the team and business to provide a clear indication of capacity and delivery.

“Goals achieved” and “Product owner satisfied” are two simple metrics which both give a clear indication of the team’s delivery. Tracking the product owner’s specific comments and feedback each sprint creates a transparent testimonial of the team progress over time – very handy.

Measuring individual team member’s performance is a little more complicated. It is generally accepted that metrics alone do not reflect a team member’s (developer/tester/analyst…) performance accurately and I tend to agree. A combination of metrics and peer review feedback; however, provide a far clearer picture. I selected a couple below:

Individual Team Members Performance

• Hours Estimated vs Actual
• % Contribution
• Peer review feedback using 360 degree review tool

I like to think that the Hours Estimated vs Actual metric indicates the following:

1. Competency and understanding of the architecture and technology stack
2. Understanding of business requirements and scope
3. Confidence in their own, and the team’s, ability

This; however, is fairly subjective – I would suggest writing up your own indicators for this metric and discussing it with your team members before agreeing.

% Contribution is a metric that brings back memories of working on group projects at university. Being aware that one is being measured based on % contribution is a sure fire way to encourage team involvement and buy in. The senior members of your team are usually in the best position to gauge the contribution of team members but I would suggest taking this one step further and incorporating this metric into the peer review process as feedback based on perceived contribution provides some interesting insight into team dynamics.

There are plenty of 360 review tools out on the web. After much scouting around I settled on two options: Survey Monkey and Dynamic Forms using Google Docs.

Google Docs is the best option as it is 100% free and allows great flexibility. You can read more about the 360 degree survey I set up using Google Docs by clicking on this link:

Survey Monkey gives you a free account and ability to create and run a survey but limited capacity to download and analyse the data.

I have created a survey here which I am planning to use at the end of this quarter – this is a work in progress so let me know what you think?

Click here to take survey

Now the proof is always in the pudding – I will post some feedback on our progress with tracking team and individual members’ performance this quarter utilising all the above options and let you know how it goes. Ciao for now.

360 Degree survey using Google Docs

I have recently been working on sourcing tools for conducting 360 degree peer reviews for my development team and department. The mandate was to find a tool (a) that is free (b) that allows easy manipulation of results for interpretation. As you can imagine this is not an easy mandate to fulfil with loads of paid-for solutions on the market.

I managed to discover 2 alternatives – Survey Monkey and dynamic forms using Google Docs. Google Docs wins hands down as the solution is entirely free and the results available in spreadsheet format for download and manipulation. Definite winner!

Here is an example of a 360 degree survey that I set up – let me know what you think.

360 Survey excel source file

Greenhoppers latest release 5.2

A couple of months back I wrote a post on creating a cumulative flow diagram (CFD) using Greenhopper. Unfortunately the article didn’t provide readers with a solution to the problem, as I was unable to finish off the custom php script I was planning to use to generate the pivot of data required to create a CFD.

Thankfully the Greenhopper team had enough time to do it for me! The latest release of Greenhopper – 5.2 includes CFD’s as well a number of other changes which you can catch up on in the Release notes.

It was a great touch by the Greenhopper team to invite me to test the latest set of features prior to the launch. I was impressed that they took the time out to send me a personal email and invite my feedback – thanks!

In testing the latest release I realised I have been a little out of touch with progress made on JIRA over the past while. The tweaks made to the interface add a “minty freshness” to the user experience, which I like. There is a clear focus to developing the supporting agile widgets – great value to project managers who are looking for that little bit extra than competing products provide. I need more time to explore 5.2 further – so far so good though.

Greenhopper has great potential in the PM tool marketplace – with such competitive pricing and available functionality, it is hard to ignore. It still doesn’t provide you with multi project/programme reporting and analysis but what’s the bet that is planned for Release 6 – watch out!

Create a Cumulative Flow Diagram using Greenhopper

Note: I have since discovered that actually this does not produce a perfect cumulative flow diagram as the script doesn’t incorporate negative accumulation. Working on a php script which factors both positive and negative to give an accurate flow.

Ok so after much hunting around I have finally found a solution to creating a cumulative flow diagram using Greenhopper – albeit a workaround!

1) Download Toad for MySQL: http://www.quest.com/toad-for-mysql/

2) Connect to your JIRA Database

3) Use the following query to pull out accumulative totals – tweak parameters based on the project you are working on:

SELECT DATE_FORMAT(changegroup.CREATED, ‘%Y/%m/%d’) AS CountDate, changeitem.NEWSTRING, Count(changeitem.NEWSTRING) As Total
FROM changeitem
left outer JOIN changegroup
ON changeitem.groupid = changegroup.ID
left outer JOIN jiraissue
ON changegroup.issueid = jiraissue.ID
left outer JOIN projectversion
ON jiraissue.PROJECT = projectversion.PROJECT
WHERE jiraissue.PROJECT = ** Your Project ID**
AND changeitem.FIELD = ‘status’
AND projectversion.vname = ‘Release 1′
GROUP BY CountDate, changeitem.NEWSTRING
ORDER BY CountDate ASC

4) Export your result set into Excel and create a pivot table
5) Change the graph to type Area
6) Summaries your results by running total

See Example here

Team motivation in a changing environment

The previous company that I worked for experienced a fairly radical change in environment in the space of 2 years. A sudden growth spurt, as well as a corporate transformation, were the key factors in this change.  This is a hard task for any leader to manage and as one can expect it raised challenging situations.

Some of the noticeable negative side affects of this change were a decrease in motivation of employees and an increase in staff churn. It is often difficult to immediately see the direct cause of these issues but a process that I have been through recently, reviewing the root of motivation, and further reading, has definitely improved my understanding.

There are loads of theories out there that lend different ideas to the driving force behind motivation. We tested one of these on a course at FTI, Hertzberg’s two factor theory. The two factors are divided into the categories of motivational and hygiene factors.

Hertzbergs Two Factor theory

In our class of 20 we each ranked the factors individually by order of personal priority and then collated results. The top 5 results are as follows:

1. Recognition
2. Achievement
3. Work itself
4. Growth
5. Salary

Interesting results considering that we represent a cross section of ages (25 – 42) and business sectors across Cape Town. One would always assume that salary would come out on top, but this is not so.

So what do these results say? Recognition, achievement, work itself and growth in a work environment are all functions of management. As managers we appraise our team members, recognising their achievements, rewarding and assigning further work that plays to their strengths. Well, in theory, that is what we should do. In retrospect I now realise the shortcomings of our approach to managing the changing environment at my previous company. The negative side affect being staff churn.

Some further reading that I have done confirms that, in fact, management is at the heart of motivation and company churn – Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman authors of First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – write “People leave managers not companies, so much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people – in the form of better pay, better perks and better training -when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue.”

In conclusion: the message is clear – If companies can focus resources and attention to ensuring that recognition, achievement, work itself, growth, and employees’ salaries are maintained at a satisfactory levels then staff will remain motivated and not think to leave and move elsewhere. Personally I am not a fan of formulas that magically lead to success. I feel that these factors are great in theory but only learned through practice and making loads of mistakes along the way. How else do people learn…?

Reading:

• http://ideas.wordpress.com/2006/01/25/why-do-talented-employees-leave-companies/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
• http://www.marcusbuckingham.com/site/about_us/books.php
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First,_Break_All_the_Rules
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Herzberg