I'm not a member of Scrum Team. However, I'd like to get a sense of the health of a Scrum Team. What is the best way to understand a Scrum Team's performance?
To be more specific, things I would like to know:
All these questions sound management BS. These questions are very much what the team should handle internally. In my opinion, the only useful question for a stakeholder is
"Is the team delivering value to me each sprint?"
If the answer is "No", you should give this feedback to the team in Sprint Review.
If the answer is "Yes", you should give this feedback to the team in Sprint Review.
I'm not a member of scrum team. However, I'd like to get a sense of the health of a scrum team. What is the best way to understand a scrum team's performance?
OK the 1st main indicator is ... are you getting code produced after every sprint. Signs of problems include User Stories being carried over from sprint to sprint. Other signs would include a team that is not having fun & getting along.
Is the team running at maximum efficiency?
The team should be working at a speed that can be kept up indefinable .. so "Maximum efficiency" is not an indicator that most of us would use.
Is the team improving over the time?
Check the number of Bugs that the team gets ... It should be going down in an ideal world.
Also check with the team that they are happy. That's a sign that issues are being resolved and the team is maturing. Perhaps attending the sprint retrospectives would be helpful
Is the team motivated enough?
You have to ask them really, attend some stand-ups or retrospectives to gauge the mood of the team
Is the team meeting their commitments?
You should see this in the sprint review or in any outputs your company has from the sprint reviews
Is the team meeting coding standards?
Who cares? a fully functioning scrum team will work to effective standards, you don't need to chase them up on it. if they are breaking basic rules ... you'll see it in the rise in the number of Bugs.
There aren't really any differences between Scrum and other approaches, for this.
Is the team running at maximum efficiency?
There's no real way to tell if they're at their 'maximum' (and what does that even mean? If a Team goes insanely overworked for a week and gets lots of work done, and then all die from stress-induced issues, is that 'maximum efficiency'?), however you can gauge efficiency by just measuring their output and comparing it to some standard (previous efficiency, other Teams', etc.)
Is the team improving over the time?
Very straightforward... just measure output over time.
Is the team motivated enough?
Highly dependent on your role in relation to the Team. If you're their manager, I'd suggest regular 1-1s where you encourage them to bring up any issues. Attending Retrospectives can also be invaluable, especially if 1-1s are infeasible. Just make sure you're only attending, not participating. You're not part of the Team, so don't take over their Retrospective.
Is the team meeting their commitments?
Again, straightforward... The Team makes a commitment every Sprint. Do they meet it?
Is the team meeting coding standards?
Again, straightforward. Look at their code. Does it meet the company's standards?
Is the team running at maximum efficiency?
The word maximum is problematic. I would look at things like predictability in completing sprint goals and frequency of interruptions to start. Also, what is their cycle time on backlog items? Or lead time on feature delivery? Kanban is all about efficient flow - the team can try applying Kanban techniques to their Scrum to get more visibility into their process.
Is the team improving over the time?
Ask the team or Scrum Master what improvements they've tried that have worked - and haven't. Watch from sprint to sprint to see if their retro takeaways result in actions.
Is the team meeting their commitments?
This should be self-evident. Don't stop here though. Meeting commitments is the beginner's game. It's a fair measure for teams starting out with Scrum, but once they can consistently deliver software and are in better control of their work and environment, they should be moving to collaboratively solve problems with the business. The "commitment" aspect should fade away as both groups get more inline with their efforts.
Is the team meeting coding standards?
Great question actually. Are they using some sort of static code analysis tool? Are they consistently using code reviews or some form of pairing? Perhaps even more importantly, are their coding standards improving over time?
