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Scrum success and KPI

Last post 03:33 pm October 8, 2018 by Alex Kudinov
2 replies
11:47 am September 21, 2018

Hi, I took open assesment for Product owner and there was a question targeting something like ‘how to validate Scrum success’. I opted for the option  stating that it can be achieved by accepting increment by product owner and stakeholders. Another option proposed ‘release often and update KPIs on value after every release and then backlog’. 

Release often is acceptable proposal but I am not sure how KPIs propagated to corect answer as there is no occurence of the word in the guide. Also this enforce update value after every release? 

1. Why it is corect? 

2. What KPIs do you use in your Scrum team?

3. What is your interpretation of Scrum success? 

4. Is KPI synonyme for value ?

Thank you 


09:55 am October 8, 2018

Hi Jana,

Where did you find that question? Caution must be applied when studying/preparing via outside sources.

Not really sure I correctly understand "how to validate Scrum success". Who needs/wants to validate? What purposes would it serve?

This framework has been validated on countless occasions throughout the world, so a good start to "validate" Scrum success would be to see whether Scrum Guide is followed. If it isn't, then don't even bother setting up KPIs. If it is, then one can look into implementing various metrics to track customer satisfaction, team morale and satisfaction, software defects, etc.


03:33 pm October 8, 2018

Remember that Scrum is based on empiricism, which states that an experiment is a path to learning and best decisions are made based on what is known. Thus you want to have tight feedback loops, to inspect and adapt. The only way figure out if you are building the right product is to release it and learn how your customers perceive / use / like / etc it.

There's no such thing as acceptance or rejection of an Increment by PO and/or stakeholders during the Sprint Review. An done Increment in accordance with the DoD is an artifact that is created and since we've been transparent about what, how (both Sprint Backlog), to what end (Sprint Goal), with a shared understanding of what done means (DoD) there's no need in acceptance, that's not the point of a Sprint Review event.

KPIs will vary based on waht organization perceives as value for a specific product or within its organizational context. KPIs are NOT synonym for value, but value to be measured, might and most likely will have a set of KPIs around it.


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