Alpha Serve Blog
We publish articles on different topics related to project management, agile methodology and philosophy, software and application development.
How to Evaluate Project Team Productivity
Published: December 23, 2019
Updated: April 25, 2024
Author: Nataliya Timoshina
Project Manager in Alpha Serve
When you are running a project, measuring, calculating, estimating and evaluating its progress is necessary. It's impossible to identify the release/delivery date without accurate numerical data. It's also difficult to say anything about cost-efficiency and revenue.
Seems like the more metrics you track, the better is team output. However, it's important to keep the balance and not to turn collecting data into the staff's nightmare that makes employees stay in the office till late at night, work on weekends and forget about vacations.
Read on and get to know how to evaluate your project team productivity without stressing the employees too much. The article is intended for teams using Jira, though, it will be useful for those who don't as well.
Seems like the more metrics you track, the better is team output. However, it's important to keep the balance and not to turn collecting data into the staff's nightmare that makes employees stay in the office till late at night, work on weekends and forget about vacations.
Read on and get to know how to evaluate your project team productivity without stressing the employees too much. The article is intended for teams using Jira, though, it will be useful for those who don't as well.
Here’s what we’ll cover in this blog post:
Business Analysis Comes First
How to Deliver on Time
Wind up
Business Analysis Comes First
How to Deliver on Time
Wind up
Here’s what we’ll cover:
It is a table of contents. Click on the needed subheading and switch between parts of the article.
Business Analysis Comes First
Before starting to work on the project you need to research some data crucial for business success. Try to answer the following questions:
If your responses are optimistic, it is time for each milestone on the project roadmap to be agreed on progress measures and KPIs (key performance indicators).
Besides these big goals, you need to include criteria for success for all product specifications. These may be the percentage of the code being tested and the end-user adoption rate. The point of doing this is simple. When a team knows the expectations, it helps to meet or even exceed them.
- Is your product the best solution for a certain problem?
- Is now the best time for release?
- Is there enough market when it's over to sell the product?
If your responses are optimistic, it is time for each milestone on the project roadmap to be agreed on progress measures and KPIs (key performance indicators).
Besides these big goals, you need to include criteria for success for all product specifications. These may be the percentage of the code being tested and the end-user adoption rate. The point of doing this is simple. When a team knows the expectations, it helps to meet or even exceed them.
How to Deliver on Time
Delivering the applications you are creating is the project's ultimate goal and main result. Any kinds of teams (scrum, kanban) are interested in agile metrics that help optimize the developmental process and distribution.
Track Scrum Team Performance with Sprint Burndown
The phase of software development is split into sprints in scrum teams. In other words, they plan to complete a certain amount of work over a certain period of time. Sprint burndown documents time and quantity of work pending. Ideally, the sprint end would complete the entire amount of scheduled work.
Evaluate Bigger Chunks of Work with Version Burndown Charts
The burndown charts we are talking about are also called "epic and release". They help assess both scrum and kanban team effectiveness. A version burndown's key distinction is that it monitors the progress of larger work lumps than a sprint burndown. Please note that a sprint can include many epics and versions, meaning you should track your scrum team's sprint progress alongside epics and versions.
Measure Velocity to Predict the Completion Dates Easily
What is the velocity? It's a measure that indicates a typical work scope that a scrum team usually ends up in a sprint. Depending on your needs, it can be measured in hours or in story points.
When you have data on the complexity of the completed work over multiple iterations, it is easy to calculate how much time a team requires to manage the specified workload. It's safe to say that velocity is used for time predictions and forecasts.
Please note that the velocity metric increases over time as team members become more skillful, which allows them to complete similar tasks on autopilot. Velocity is unique for each team. It is not recommended to compare these metrics for different teams. If one team's velocity is lower it does not mean that employees underperform. This difference is caused by multiple reasons such as work culture, task complexity, and story point interpretation.
When you have data on the complexity of the completed work over multiple iterations, it is easy to calculate how much time a team requires to manage the specified workload. It's safe to say that velocity is used for time predictions and forecasts.
Please note that the velocity metric increases over time as team members become more skillful, which allows them to complete similar tasks on autopilot. Velocity is unique for each team. It is not recommended to compare these metrics for different teams. If one team's velocity is lower it does not mean that employees underperform. This difference is caused by multiple reasons such as work culture, task complexity, and story point interpretation.
Use Control Charts to Track Overall Time of Handling the Issue
This type of chart is created to measure the time needed to complete separate issues, from their 'in progress' to the final 'done' stage. Please note that tasks may have different cycles. Some are short and some are consistent. Teams handling tasks with shorter cycles will have higher metrics, yet, when the development cycles are consistent, it's easier to accurately predict the shipment date.
Time spent on each cycle is a must-measure metric for kanban teams. But this does not mean that scrum teams can't benefit from it. They can use a customized version of the control chart.
How does this evaluation of cycle time affect team productivity? It shows the results of tweaks and adjustments very soon, which helps understand what changes to make further to achieve a sustainable boost of efficiency.
No matter what kind of work team members are doing, they should strive to have both short and consistent cycle time.
Time spent on each cycle is a must-measure metric for kanban teams. But this does not mean that scrum teams can't benefit from it. They can use a customized version of the control chart.
How does this evaluation of cycle time affect team productivity? It shows the results of tweaks and adjustments very soon, which helps understand what changes to make further to achieve a sustainable boost of efficiency.
No matter what kind of work team members are doing, they should strive to have both short and consistent cycle time.
Find out the Bottlenecks in Team's Performance with a Cumulative Flow Diagram
Kanban teams use cumulative flow diagrams as one of the main sources of performance data. It displays how consistent the workflow is across the team. A cumulative flow diagram contains issues, time, and colors that visually represent task progress levels, highlighting the pain points that need immediate assistance. The diagram is closely linked to the limits of work in progress.
There should be no color bubbles or holes in a trouble-free cumulative flow diagram, it should look smooth all the way. If you notice too much or lack of some color in certain places, it means you have a performance problem there. Your goal is to smoothen the color bands all over the chart.
There should be no color bubbles or holes in a trouble-free cumulative flow diagram, it should look smooth all the way. If you notice too much or lack of some color in certain places, it means you have a performance problem there. Your goal is to smoothen the color bands all over the chart.
What Else You Need to Measure to Get Keep Team's Productivity in Control
We have discussed just a few key reports aimed to evaluate and increase the productivity of your team. Of course, there are many more things to measure when you are focused on greater project results and customer happiness.
First of all, you need a smart time tracker for Jira. This way you will know the exact time your team members spend on each task and issue. 99% of the commercial projects are time-sensitive, so I guess it's needless to persuade you that it's vital to track the time.
And what about quality? Is it important to deliver the products of the highest quality? The answer is surely "yes!" It's impossible to stand the competition otherwise.
Agile teams apply quite a number of QA metrics. For instance:
You should also control the speed of production and the frequency of releases as an agile team. Ideally, after every sprint, the team releases software for production. Do you often have releases and how many of them do you ship? Does it take long to fix an urgent bug? Do releases happen naturally or do they demand struggle and extra efforts?
First of all, you need a smart time tracker for Jira. This way you will know the exact time your team members spend on each task and issue. 99% of the commercial projects are time-sensitive, so I guess it's needless to persuade you that it's vital to track the time.
And what about quality? Is it important to deliver the products of the highest quality? The answer is surely "yes!" It's impossible to stand the competition otherwise.
Agile teams apply quite a number of QA metrics. For instance:
- The total number of bugs found in the process of app development.
- The number of bugs found after the release of the app.
- The number of requests for bug fixing in help/support chat.
- The percentage of the code having been checked, etc.
You should also control the speed of production and the frequency of releases as an agile team. Ideally, after every sprint, the team releases software for production. Do you often have releases and how many of them do you ship? Does it take long to fix an urgent bug? Do releases happen naturally or do they demand struggle and extra efforts?
Wind up
It's undoubtedly important to evaluate team productivity. You get numbers and insights that help in reaching the set corporate goals. However, it's not about metrics only. You need to develop and maintain team culture, collect staff feedback, build trust and collaboration inside the team, and focus on product quality. All these will contribute to a more streamlined release process.
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