Agility Works. You can look at projects and see that more often than not, it delivers the goods. So, why do so many software projects remain artifact-driven and waterfall-ish? The most common excuses are that agility is too developer-centric, that it is too lightweight, and that feedback to business is hard to understand. In particular, many managers in larger companies miss the metrics that waterfall-type projects deliver.

In [an old white paper], we consider[ed] a new metric - Earned Business Value (EBV) - to report progress and to manage Agile projects. [Ken Pugh has written a newer blog about estimating Business Value Estimating Business Value]

EBV is mathematically sound and is pragmatic for business. EBV can replace Earned Value Analysis (EVA), a usual metric for waterfall projects.

What do you think? I would love to get your comments. Post them to this blog or drop us a note: [email protected]

Dan Rawsthorne's white paper [now is at] Calculating Earned Business Value for an Agile Project