Ten questions to ask your agile delivery team
Ten questions you can ask at a show and tell without any technical background. Each comes with what a good answer sounds like and what should worry you.
A senior responsible owner (SRO) or director can judge how an agile delivery team is doing with ten questions. They cover the outcome, the users, the working service, the team’s record and the decisions the team is waiting for. Each one is below, with what a good answer sounds like and what should worry you.
How to use the questions
Ask them on a visit or at the team’s show and tell, the regular meeting where they demonstrate their work. Keep them out of the board meeting. Ask the same ones each month so that you see the trend as well as the answer. You are listening for evidence the team already holds. If they have to go away and build a slide, you have asked for a report, and the Government Digital Service (GDS) warns in its guidance on measuring and reporting progress that extra reporting takes time away from delivery.
Our half-day Agile Awareness programme covers how to question and support an agile team, and the one-day Agile Leadership programme goes further into governance.
The outcome and the users
1. What will be different for users when this works, and how will we know?
A good answer names the people, the change and a measure with today’s figure beside it. Worry if you get a list of features.
2. Who have you tested with since we last spoke, and what did you change?
A good answer names the kinds of user, how many sessions the team ran and one thing they changed as a result. Worry if all you hear is that users are happy.
The working service
3. Can you show me the service working?
A good team opens it and uses it in front of you. GDS says the best way to measure progress is to “see the thing”. Worry if you are shown slides about the service.
4. When did you last release a change to real users?
A good answer is a recent date and a rhythm, such as every week. How often a team releases is one of the measures used by DORA, Google Cloud’s programme on software delivery. Before a service is live, ask when users last tried a prototype. Worry if the team is saving changes up for one large release some months away.
The team’s record and the forecast
5. How many pieces of work did you finish in each of the last eight weeks?
A good answer is eight numbers read from the team’s tracking tool. Without that record the team cannot forecast. Worry if you are offered a percent-complete figure or a count of hours spent.
6. What is the oldest piece of work in progress, and what is holding it up?
A good team knows without looking it up and can name the person who could unblock it. Often that person is outside the team, and sometimes it is you. Worry if nobody knows.
7. When will the next milestone be done, and how sure are you?
A good answer is a date with odds drawn from the team’s record, such as “an 85% chance by 6th October”, along with what would move it. Worry if you get one date with no odds or the words “on track”. Our guide to reading a delivery forecast explains the odds.
Scope, money and decisions
8. What are you not doing?
A good answer is a short list of things the team has left out, with the reason for each. Worry if everything is still in scope, because then nobody has chosen.
9. What have you learned that changes the business case?
In its guidance on agile business cases, HM Treasury expects what the team learns in discovery, the first research phase, and in each phase after it to change the business case. A good answer names one assumption that has changed and what that does to cost or benefit. Worry if the case has not moved since the day it was approved.
10. What do you need me to decide, and by when?
A good answer is one decision and a date. In its governance principles, GDS asks service owners to be available and to make decisions often, and we would ask the same of an SRO. Worry if the answer has been “nothing” for months. Either the team holds all the authority they need or they have stopped asking.
What to do with the answers
Write the answers down with the date, then ask again a month later and compare. If the team could not answer questions 5 to 7, ask them to start counting finished work each week. After a few weeks they will have enough for a first forecast. Take the decision from question 10 away with you and make it by the date they gave.
Questions people ask
What should an SRO ask an agile team?
Ask about the outcome for users, the working service, the team's record of finished work and the decisions they are waiting for. Avoid asking for percent complete, because someone has to guess that figure, and the count of finished work comes straight from the team's board.
How often should a director meet the delivery team?
GDS says SROs should visit teams regularly and take part in their sprint reviews or show and tells. NISTA notes that teams generally work in two-week cycles with a show and tell at the end of each, so once or twice a month is a sensible rhythm.
What is a good sign in an agile delivery team?
The team can show you the service working, tell you how much they finished in each recent week and name what they have chosen not to do. A team that can do all three is managing the work from evidence.
What if the team cannot answer these questions?
Treat it as a gap in what the team measures before you treat it as a failing. Ask them to start counting the pieces of work they finish each week, and ask the same questions again a month later.