SAFe 4.5 Reference Guide: Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises, Second edition

Metrics

The most important things cannot be measured. The issues that are most important, long term, cannot be measured in advance.

—W. Edwards Deming

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

—Agile Manifesto

Metrics are agreed-upon measures used to evaluate how well the organization is progressing toward the Portfolio, Large Solution, Program, and team’s business and technical objectives.

Thanks to its work physics, timeboxes, and fast feedback, Agile is inherently more measurable than its proxy-based predecessor, the waterfall process. Moreover, with Agile, ‘the system always runs.’ So, the best measure comes directly from the objective ...