Metrics have long been a point of debate by agilists. Despite the fact that agile development is empirical because of the continuous delivery of quality software, PMO offices, project managers, and clients alike still demand detailed status reporting as they would for any waterfall based project. Although business need is one reason for oversight, agile development itself contributes to a level of uncertainty that some people always want to nail down. In an effort to buck this trend, many agilists contend that measurements should not be used at all, and that only the production of software itself should be considered the yardstick for success. The proponents of this approach contend that development teams and project managers will instinctively game the system by manipulating user stories and estimates in such a way as to produce the semblance of high efficiency and hide the real problems. However, there's an adage that states what gets measured, gets done. The main reason this gaming occurs is that organizations rely too much on one or two metrics instead of having a comprehensive metrics solution. In this article, we’ll discuss the metrics proven to produce the best intelligence available on team performance, quality, value, and even agility. We’ll even talk about some metrics you may never have heard of, based on the latest research and most innovative case studies.

Call centers are an essential component of customer service teams, so they should be routinely evaluated for quality assurance. Therefore, customer service managers should monitor the efficiency of their teams closely, and continuously look for vital information that will help them improve the customer experience. Thankfully, those responsible for the overall performance of call centers have many useful metrics available at their fingertips. When analyzed together, these indicators not only help managers with optimizing the performance of call center agents but also enable companies to determine the effectiveness of their customer service as a whole. Let’s analyze the main metrics that every call center manager should be tracked continuously.

Slack: Where work happens. More and more, that value statement is true. There are an estimated 50,000+ paying teams on Slack, in over 100 countries. Nine million people are using it every week in companies around the globe. Including this one here in Boston.