“When will it be done?” is a question asked in just about every business I’ve encountered, Agile or otherwise. In this metrics-focused session we will explore why that question is so hard to answer and whether it is even the right question to ask.

We will explore current thinking about measurement in knowledge work fields. How every business needs to identify their own appropriate metrics to measure for their own business challenges and goals. While metrics are always unique for each individual business context, we will identify 4 metric categories identified from the Fit for Purpose framework.

To connect these concepts to your Agile organization we explore going past looking at measurement as a team phenomena and connect this to the level of services or value streams.

Digging further we continue to examine questions around measuring and predicting delivery times. We contrast prediction approaches using deterministic methods vs probabilistic methods. And consider multiple sources of variability that make predictions challenging and often impossible.

We conclude by considering more appropriate questions to replace “When will it be done?” Rather asking “When do we need it” followed by “and so, when should start?”

Scrum has proven to be a successful framework for many companies in complex delivery domains to transition to Agility from more traditional delivery methods.

At some point during these transitions many companies have experienced a stall to what have previously been ongoing and exponential improvements. Complexity brings with it challenges in the "white spaces" that exist between teams where local improvements become disconnected from the delivery of customer value.

In this workshop, we introduce a simulation of "The Company" where the white space challenges are experienced.

Through the use of the simulation we introduce Lean & Systems Thinking concepts to improve the system as a whole and bring the company back to a place of continuous improvement that is connected to customer value.

^{Note for conference selection committee: Additional option: the content can be presented in a 40 -60 minute talk format if workshop space is limited.}