ABSTRACT

Schedule performance is most commonly tied to the efficiency of delivery, but it can also relate to the sequence of delivery. For Agile projects, schedule performance means the efficiency of delivery. Typically, Agile projects infer schedule efficiency from Point counts: the number of Points completed is compared to the number expected to be complete. The key to identifying performance levels is thresholds. Thresholds, or more precisely, threshold values, mark the boundaries between levels. The boundaries differentiate between high, medium, and low performance. In the past, threshold values for the metrics have been based on intuition and experience. As a result, the values have varied widely from one practitioner to the next. With metrics for schedule performance and thresholds for assessing them in place, the next consideration is how they are used to improve performance. There are five rungs to the performance-improvement ladder: Setting Expectations, Capturing Empirical Data, Calculating Metrics, Assessing Results, and Improving Performance.