What is Evidence Based Management?

Evidence based management is a framework developed by Scrum.org designed to enable technology leaders to develop a management approach based on measuring value and evaluating the effect of change on that value. The framework seeks to emulate the tremendously successful approach that transformed medical science, a field that once relied on anecdotal evidence, superstition, hunches, and tradition. Evidence based medicine is a mature, scientific approach to decision-making in a messy, contradictory, complex field, and provides a framework to make balanced judgments on the efficacy of treatments and therapies.

Technology is also a messy, contradictory, complex field, and so taking a similar approach to measurement; hypothesising ways of improvement; and then validating the results, is a good foundation for decision-making. The EBM framework starts by defining the overall value of a product or enterprise in four broad areas:

Evidence Based Management (EBM) Framework

Current value - valuable things you already have. Measurements include:

• Customer satisfaction

• Employee satisfaction

• Revenue per employee

Time to market - the characteristics of your system. Measurements include:

• Release frequency

• Lead time

• Release stabilisation period

Innovation rate - your ability to deliver new features and functionality. Measurements include:

• Technical debt

• Time spent building new vs maintenance or fixing defects

• Number of simultaneous projects

Unrealised value - the room for growth in increasing the current value. Measurements include:

• Market share

• Customer / User satisfaction gap