When executives ask “How do we know if this Scrum thing is working?”, they’re usually bracing for some elaborate new measurement framework. Here’s the twist: you probably don’t need one. This might sound anticlimactic, especially to consultants selling complex measurement dashboards. But there’s psychological genius here: people already resist change, so why pile on unfamiliar measurement schemes? Let the methodology be new; keep the scoreboard familiar.
Three Questions That Actually Matter
Before you can measure improvement, you need brutal honesty about your baseline.
Time to value: How long from idea to customer hands? (Not your optimistic project timeline—the real timeline, complete with all those “quick” approval cycles.)
Quality reality check: Count defects, sure, but weight them properly. Twelve cosmetic bugs don’t equal one security breach.
Satisfaction scores: Ask customers and teams to rate their experience numerically. Track trends over time.
The Metrics That Reveal the Most
Here’s where it gets interesting. While traditional metrics like velocity matter, the real goldmine often sits in unexpected places:
Innovation capacity shows up in cost-per-feature analysis. When teams start delivering more valuable functionality for less investment, something fundamental has shifted in your organizational machinery.
Employee engagement scores might sound touchy-feely until you realize engaged employees are measurably more productive and dramatically less likely to quit. Lisa Hershman notes that many CEOs now answer to their boards specifically about these engagement metrics.
One executive told Starrett that after six months of Scrum, his team understood their product better than they had after ten years of traditional development. That’s not sentiment—that’s institutional knowledge translating to better decision-making.
The Skeptic’s Dilemma
But here’s the rub: correlation isn’t causation. When your metrics improve after implementing Scrum, expect pushback. “Sure, customer satisfaction went up 15%, but maybe it was the new hire, the market shift, or just dumb luck.”
This is where tactical measurement becomes crucial. If you’re selling Scrum as a path to faster innovation, drill down to cycle times. If quality is the promise, track defect escape rates by sprint. Connect your granular Scrum practices to your macro business outcomes with surgical precision.
The Contrarian View
Some seasoned project managers argue this measurement approach is too simplistic. They contend that Scrum fundamentally changes how work gets done, so traditional metrics might miss the deeper organizational shifts—like improved cross-functional collaboration or enhanced adaptive capacity.
There’s merit here. A team might maintain the same velocity while dramatically improving their ability to pivot when requirements change. Traditional metrics could miss this enhanced organizational resilience entirely.
The Real Test
Perhaps the most honest measure is the simplest: after experiencing Scrum, do teams want to revert to their old processes? Sometimes sophisticated measurement is just asking people how they feel about their work—and then trusting what they tell you.
Key Takeaways:
- Use your existing success metrics; don’t reinvent measurement
- Establish brutal baseline honesty before claiming improvement
- Employee engagement often reveals Scrum’s deepest impact
- Prepare for correlation vs. causation skepticism with tactical sub-metrics
- The ultimate test: do people want to go back to the old way?
The irony of measuring Scrum success? The most profound changes might be the hardest to quantify—but also the most obvious to anyone paying attention.