EBM Metrics

I think the answer to this could vary greatly depending on your product and business context. The appendix of the EBM guide has a lot of great examples as a starting point. I can give you an example of how one might use some of this information in order to run experiments and create value though. 

Under Current Value of a product a Product Owner may look at something like 'usage rate' of it's features. A Product Owner may review an under performing feature and consider several paths. 

1) Retire the feature to simplify the product. Perhaps the team has tried several things and it's still underused. 

2) Work with the development team to make the feature more robust or user friendly so it's more appealing. 

3) Work with sales/marketing to run campaigns to build user awareness of the feature and why they should consider using it. If the users aren't aware of the benefits and have a desire to use it a more robust feature may not net the desired value. 

Utilizing the EBM framework the team should be able to use the information gathered to see if their marketing campaigns or feature enhancements obtained the value they were seeking. It's important to know how you're going to measure success and focus on improving a little at a time to better track the outcome back to the activity, especially if you're dealing with lagging indicators. 

Nice thread !!

I am also quite keen to apply EBM metrics in my organization but to be honest i don't know where to start with. We have some measurements similar to KVAs in EBM like Current value, time to market and ability to innovate. But since we have some problem in our measurement criteria & they seem not to be reliable, which developed my interest in EBM.

But how to realize our criteria effectively into KVAs is what i find challenging. Is there a simple way to start with ? has anyone applied it successfully.  

Harshal, 

In terms of what to measure and how to measure it reliably...

I'm a firm believer that not all of the metrics should be determined in a silo for a given product. As a Product Owner, I would look to my development team to help me come up with important areas of measurement, especially when it comes to time to market and ability to innovate. 

Let's take time to market as an example. I'm defining this as the time the Scrum Team adds a user story to the Sprint Backlog up until it's released to production. If I ask the development team members to put the Sprint Backlog add date and Release to production date of every user story into an excel sheet I will likely have inaccurate results for a few reasons.

1. Team members are responsible for manually updating  this information. Even with a tool they are responsible for moving work tasks in a timely manner. 
2. If I didn't include the team members in the decision despite asking them to make changes to their daily behavior I will likely be met with resistance. Changes to daily behavior requires discipline and a strong desire to do so. 

If we're working together, I'm more likely to get buy in for the metrics and the activity needed to gather them. Down the road the team could always add in a PBI to find a solution to automate the metrics in order to increase reliability and decrease manual work. 

If you're starting from nothing I'd try to keep it as simple as possible and work to expand incrementally, especially if manual work is required to capture the metrics. People need time to work through the change process. Including them in the decision making will likely help your speed of adoption. 

Thanks Tony for response !!

I'm a firm believer that not all of the metrics should be determined in a silo for a given product. As a Product Owner, I would look to my development team to help me come up with important areas of measurement, especially when it comes to time to market and ability to innovate. 

Yes , currently its not about any kind of decisions. Its more about to understand the EBM metric itself like checking with other products and companies using this metric, getting some suggestions to start with or sharing experiences. I know it will definitely differ from product to product but still will be beneficial just to know to get more clarity. 

If you're starting from nothing I'd try to keep it as simple as possible and work to expand incrementally, especially if manual work is required to capture the metrics. 

I agree, a simple start should be the best way to proceed.

Are there any EBM metrics for non-software companies. I'm currently supporting a glass and window installation company who install anything with glass, like store facades, windows, doors, stairs, tables you name it. Have not found any online yet.

@Frans I Think for your problem, for the Current Value (Revenue per employee, Product Cost Ratio, Customer satisfaction, ...) and Unrealized Value (Market Share, customer satisfaction gap, potential evolutions, ... ) it should roughly be the same as software companies.

The trick is for Time to Market and ability to innovate. Some metrics has to be transformed . For example: technical debt could be seen as quality of installation (will the window fall or break after x years due to fast installation or poor components). But more than that giving you a list of metrics, you should see with your PO and people who do the job, which metrics are the most leading, and show  how value is grown, or if there are potential wastes. People who do the job are great to see the final waste, not seen by upper management.

The list of metrics at the end of the EBM guide gives a rough idea. But the purpose of the metrics is for me the key to know which metric to use. Because if you don't know why you want to use a metric, the metric in itself will become a mean and not be a tool. 

 

A good Time to Market measure would be the order-to-installation-complete time - it would give your client an idea of how responsive they are to orders.

Laurent makes a good point about Ability to Innovate - post-install service calls would be important to measure.  And jis point about talking to installers is insightful as well - they often see waste that management doesn't.