Evidence-based Management

[Zuzanna Perkowska]

Hey,

Have you ever use or actually using EBM in your nonprofits teams? I'm curious how it works in reality and what is your opinion about it. Also if you could say a few words about how you implement it I'll be glad.

Thanks in advance

[Jeff Tillett]

So I'm not actively involved with support a non-profit, but I can say that as a commercial company, we actively attempt to use "Data driven decision making" which is basically EBM without peer reviewed sources from my understanding. 

I think the main point is to build a process that eliminates unconscious bias by ensuring that you are only using real proven evidence or provable industry best practices rather than relying on gut, instinct, or making decisions based on hypothesis' that aren't intended to be experimental.

[Zuzanna Perkowska]

Hey @Jeff Tillett

Thanks for your response. You said you pay attention only to proven evidence rather than instinct. How it works with scrum which is agile and avoid strict rules and analytics. 

If I don't understand you, please correct me. 

I understand EBM as a tool to measure typically unmeasured things in Scrum. EBM helps find places for development and growth of the product and team. But I believe that's a background (analytic side) for teams work

[Jeff Tillett]

Scrum is not to avoid strict rules and analytics, but rather shift to a different combination of trailing and leading indicators to base your decision on, along with a feedback loop from your customers. 

I'm saying ditch the effort of peer reviews, and use sprint commitments and velocity along with feature feedback to prioritize and modify your backlog and make more informed commitments for each iteration based on what your team is known to be able to crank out. 

Analytics is very much part of the Scrum process, but you need to be careful to set limits that keep you nimble enough to maintain the ability to respond to your market, and not end up in "Analytics-paralysis"