Preface
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Development teams adopt agile practices differently based on team members, time commitments, the type of project being developed, and the software available, to name only a few factors. As quoted from the Agile Manifesto, teams should have regular check and adjust periods where they can reflect on how well they’re working and how they can improve. This book demonstrates how to gather performance data to measure an agile team, interpret it, and react to it at check and adjust intervals so the team can reach their full potential.
After years of working on agile teams, I’ve noticed that many times teams check and adjust based on gut feelings or the latest blog post someone read. Many times teams don’t use real data to determine what direction to go in or to rate their team or their process. You don’t have to go far to find the data with development, tracking, and monitoring tools used today. Applications have very sophisticated performance-monitoring systems; tracking systems are used to manage tasks; and build systems are flexible, simple, and powerful. Combine all of this with modern deployment methodologies and teams shipping code to production multiple times a day in an automated fashion, and you have a wealth of data you can use to measure your team in order to adjust your process.