All the team members or Scrum Master knows that there is an expectation from them about delivering software each and every iteration offering value. The most important parts of every effort, include measurements, reporting, and metrics. Going forward, we will only talk about one term that is known as reporting. The majority of our readers are aware of the fact that reporting remains with us prior to the era of software. We require reporting to assist in guiding us, alerting us, and informing is when there is a change or correction in the course is required. We are running blind in the dark without reporting. We should give value to Reporting, more importantly to “Agile Reporting”.

Whether the company you are working in four, five or six week’s sprints, the reporting is as important as eating food. Reporting can be defined as the direct result of the inherent required for measuring, digesting, and understanding the major details while making a decision. When we talk about Agile, there is a need to make reporting component faster and easier to understand and read. You should be aware of the fact that the Agile doesn’t give you time for building reporting while discharge of the iterations. There is a need for setting it and make sure to be available prior to the proverbial gun that goes off at the beginning line of the Sprint.

In Agile, reporting assists in getting results that offer value, period! There is a need to make sure reporting is right and remain real-time because we can receive it. Furthermore, reporting also required to make us cautious regarding any threatening problems, like the team doesn’t fulfill all the duties in the Sprint as they have too much to forecast the sprint will be finished by the team before time as they don’t have adequate work for performing in the Sprint or there is lots of additional work added by the product owner to the Sprint so that the team will not become capable to complete it. Now, the testing work has moved to another place generally to the backlog. We will get the ability for tracking progress and pivoting early on through reporting.

The whole health of the Sprint is needed to be understood by the Scrum Master and Team Members. Furthermore, they should be aware of the way they are moving towards reaching value, the overall workload of the team, individual work assignment, and all the outstanding impediments, such as dependencies and blockers. Furthermore, the Scrum Masters required to be aware of the Velocity of Agile Team and the way it trends towards completing Releases and Epics. It is necessary that these reports should be informative and not so difficult for understanding. The reporting becomes extra comprehensive when we progress up the food-chain. When we reach the Portfolio level in the company, every report required to be concise, crystal clear, and understandable.

Also, the most important thing is that it should be capable to import every essential knowledge within the period of 2 minutes. Yes, you have heard it right, just two minutes! If we talk about the Enterprise Portfolio level, there isn’t time owned by the senior management that they spent hours on reading these reports. At this stage, a constant barrier to invest in the activities consume time. Good consuming target the right persona with the adequate context that shouldn’t be tough for reading, understanding and act upon.

These are the five main key characteristics that should be considered for Agile Reporting:

Goal of Report:

Do you know how the report will assist you with your objectives?

The software is the main cost thing now that ranges from creating it to selling on an open market, financial industry, telecommunications, military weapons systems, the medical community, or a range of other paradigms or industries for whom delivering it with a greater value is important. The power of keeping and maintaining speed with the pace at which the business environment modifies makes the reporting an imperative within the Agile development. If you are going closer or away from adding value, then the good reports need to be calculated.

There is a need to make reporting on the results for how accurately the time is progressing towards the goals of the Sprint, what is the number of bugs or stories that have been completed and which ones are still left to do, and many other things. Therefore, reporting should be aligned with your objectives.

User for Report:

When it comes to Agile, there is very important role played by the persona of the user who absorbs the reporting. In order to focus the right audience on correct content, good reporting will be required. The users of the reporting are Product Owner, Senior & Program Management, Scrum Master, and Agile Team, but they required details at several levels with a unique context. As written above, a very informative and useful reporting conducted at the Scrum Master level. Furthermore, all the subsequent levels above required aggregated and comprehensive details. Therefore, there is a very critical role played by the identification of right user persona in the reporting.

Value of Report:

Does any value provided by the report? Or the main point addressed by the report through which a user persona cracked by a user persona in the past and now reporting assists in eliminating them in the upcoming future. For instance, the historical velocity trends of the team are displayed by the reporting through which Scrum Master is allowed to escort the Sprint commitments in the future in a relation to the past performance. All the reports should offer value for the persona of the user. The reports shouldn’t be created if they have no value. Therefore, a meaningful insight is offered by the measure and report.

Data Source of Report:

A single system of record is considered as the best source of data. The JIRA Software created by the Atlassian doesn’t have much popularity among the users, but it is an amazing tool for applying outstanding reporting that can understand in an easier and quicker manner in a single-system of record. The most amazing method for tracking and reporting the efforts of Agile development at every level is to manage the Agile development by using this tool. Moreover, every characteristic of your Agile development can be tracked if they are configured in a proper way. Therefore, it is important that reporting should be anchored according to the correct data source.

Frequency of Reports:

Do you know how many times the reports need to be created and delivered? It is the rate at which the report should be developed or reviewed by the company? There is an important role played by the frequency of the report because of the basic requirement for becoming capable to develop a course correction if the data displays that you aren’t going in the right direction. Always give adequate time to the company for giving a reaction. Reporting at a myriad of levels ranging from Scrum Boards having built-in reporting to the Kanban Boards having built-in reporting and saved queries. Every report is updated in a dynamic way, but all of them doesn’t require attention more frequently.

For example, it is compulsory that burndown should be reviewed daily or even multiple times in a day, but the relevancy is held by the velocity charts from each level for forecasting and planning. Therefore, you will be greatly assisted in targeting the right thing at the most relevant moment by finding the correct accent of reporting.

In order to receive the maximum amount of extent that is possible in each company and every report, you should utilize these five main characteristics. There is a need to make reporting result-oriented so that it can assist in completing the targets. Always avoid the utilization of Metrics in a negative manner like an evaluation of individual performance, applying micro-management, utilization as a proverbial cricket bat for hitting the Agile staff or any other similar things that can bring the morale of the team down.