There is a lot going around about success in Scrum these days.  Talks on ScrumButt,(or ScrumBut); long threads about how long it takes; presentations on what is involved.  Yet I wonder how these folks can talk this way.  In my humble opinion to declare that you are successful at being Agile or doing Scrum is to admit that you don’t grasp the essence of Agility.
Maybe I am wrong, after all I put my pants on just like everyone else and just like them I periodically forget to zip up.  Could be one of us has that problem.
So to be transparent, What I have been teaching, coaching, leading, and doing the past 10 years is getting people to stop thinking about this as a goal to attain and to start accepting that it is a way of getting things done, better each time.
Is this a copout in that I never have to say my teams FAILED?  Nope.  It means that if you did good today, you were better than you were yesterday and now you have to do something else to be successful tomorrow. Lots of days you don’t get there but you do learn what doesn’t work. So if I understand the ScrumButters’ metrics, most of what I do is fail, but then again I have tomorrow to change things and get better than I was.

Here is what I measure.

As a Trainer I measure my coaching ability by the answering these questions.

1. Are the DOERS (developers, architects, testers, leads) taking responsibility for what they do and do not do and are they extending that expectation to those groups they work with?
2. Is there a simple measure of DONE and NOT DONE and is it constantly being inspected, refined and adapted to better meet the goals of the organization?
3. Do Product Owners, Stakeholders, business types increasingly take ownership of the value decisions?
4. Do the process junkies and the PowerPoint wizards become engeaged in a way that increases the ability of the organization to deliver value early?
5. Do Agile practices expand so that people in Operations, Support, Help Desks, Maintenance have a scrum where their work is on a Taskboard and all their work is recognized for the value it provides?

As a Coach I measure my training skills by answering these questions.

1. Do the team members and the stakeholders understand the terms and the actions that go along with them?
2. Do they look for ways to exploit understanding of Agile in the organization by adapting and inspecting what they do?
3. Does the stakeholder community increase its attendance at reviews, scrums, to listen and transparently evaluate what is being done?
4. Do the people in the different roles respect their work, look for ways to improve and most of all encourage and mind each other?
5. Am I as a Coach/Trainer moved to the rear of the conversation Does the team talk to each other and not to the ScrumMaster?
6. Is the Product Owner called on to do their job?

SO If I have one metric that says I have been ‘successful’ it is simply that no matter how hard the traditionalist try to stamp out Agile behavior, Scrums become a way of life.  Is that Scrum Butt -yeah – so what.

In the end, the only Butt in question is the traditionalist mind that won’t change.

oh yeah, check your zipper.