Whilst consistency is often implicitly expected, it can be difficult to achieve without careful design. We recommend focussing upon two aspects of consistency: throughput and quality. Although you may add more if this adds value to the customer.
Throughput
Also referred to as Productivity measures the amount of work an Agile Team can complete in a certain timeframe. For example, an Agile Support Team may be expected to resolve 100 customer incidents per week. Whilst an Agile HR Team, may be expected to process 20 job applications in the same timeframe.
It is important to consider task size, when comparing throughput numbers from one period to another.
Example Targets
- # of incidents resolved
- # of changes completed successfully
- # of requests fulfilled
- # of sales achieved
- # of proposal submitted
- # leads generated
- # new staff on-boarded
- # of tasks completed
Quality
Can be measured through features, useability, performance, reliability, compliance, and more.
Service Level Agreements can be useful to formally establish expected quality levels and provide a method for comparing variations, when different customers have different expectations. For example, gold, silver, or bronze plans.
Example Targets
- Availability / uptime (e.g. 99.99%)
- Capacity (e.g. 1,000 concurrent users)
- Security (e.g. <1 security incident per month)
- Branding (e.g. adheres to corporate standards)
- Complaints (e.g. 98% customer satisfaction)
- Performance (e.g. 1,000 transaction p/second)
- Accuracy (e.g. no spelling mistakes)