A brief introduction to measurements for Agile software delivery

Before we take a look at example metrics we can use, there are a couple of distinctions we need to make between the types of measurements and how we should use them.

Understanding measurements

There are many measurements that we can use to give us an idea of how our team is performing. Before we start tracking metrics, it's important to understand that what we measure is what we get. 

For instance, velocity is a standard measurement used by Scrum teams. It tells us how many User Story Points we're completing on average in each Sprint. As we'll explain further in the Negative versus positive section, it's a measurement that is used mainly by the team to help them understand how they are performing. If used out of this context, it can cause adverse effects which can make the metrics meaningless.

A lot of measurements work in the same way; that is, they're meaningful to the team but less useful to those outside it. They don't always...