Agile enables development teams to bring major benefits to software customers. Functionality is delivered faster and closer to business needs than was possible with old ‘waterfall’ processes.

However, Agile processes have a significant weakness – their use of ‘Story Points’ for performance measurement and estimating. Story Point measurements may be meaningful in individual teams but cannot be relied on to help measure performance across teams. Nor can the resulting data be used to help with budgeting or estimating a new project in its early stages (ie. managing ‘Agile-at-Scale’ activities).

All essential processes that management relies on for budgeting, estimating and controlling Agile-at-Scale activities need a more reliable and objective measure of work-output than Story Points. Any of the ISO standard methods for estimating or measuring software size can meet this need.

COSMIC, IFPUG and Nesma have collaborated to produce a report that shows how their methods can be used to manage Agile-at-Scale activities. This can be achieved whilst leaving existing Agile processes unchanged at the team level.

Would you like a free copy of: ‘We prefer Facts not Stories – Managing Agile Activities Using Standardized Measures’?