How do you measure the individual contributions of each member of an agile software delivery team?
It’s a trick question.
You can’t.
Agile software delivery is a team sport. The team succeeds or fails together.
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Top comments (6)
In highly collaborative work, which software engineering is, when done right, the ability to measure individual contributions means the team is dysfunctional.
What you have described is definitely NOT highly collaborative.
You've described scatter/gather, which is very individualistic.
It's common, of course, but not highly collaborative.
Highly collaborative, by definition, means that many people are collaboratimg constantly. This may mean ensemble programming, for example.
In highly collaborative work, it's literally impossible to determine who did what.
You'll hear people say things like "I'm not sure whose idea that was" or "We built that together".
No. Your version of software delivery isn't highly collaborative.
The version you describe IS common. But it's not the only way. And it's definitely not the best way in most cases.