The One With The Progress Pageant

There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of a successful sprint demo. The team hits all their story points, the velocity graph climbs like a dream, and the burn chart slopes beautifully down to zero. Leadership beams with pride. Scrumtificator basks in the glow of accolades. Everything looks perfect...on paper.

With the excitement of someone waiting for a magic trick reveal, Poh-Poh asks: “Can I see the progress of the work? Can I see it actually working?”

Cue the panic. Wide-eyed, Scrumtificator hesitates. The truth is, while the team has completed all their planned tasks, the actual product is barely functional. Yet, somehow, this gets overlooked because the burn chart—well—it makes everything seem fine.

Welcome to The Progress Pageant, where teams become so dazzled by outputs that they lose sight of real outcomes. Picture it: agile team members frolicking like peacocks and pleasant pheasants around a dashboard pointing and chirping, “Look, it’s going up!” Metrics shine and charts slope perfectly, but underneath the glitz lies a sobering truth—none of it matters if the product isn’t delivering value.

It's the Agile equivalent of a platypus project—yes, it technically "works," but only if you squint hard enough. Is it solving the right problems? Probably not. And yet, the allure of pretty charts keeps teams stuck in this pageant parade.

In Agile, progress isn't just about what you’ve completed—it’s about what delivers real value. So why do teams keep falling for the lure of metrics? And more importantly, how can we avoid it? Let’s dig in.

The Problem

Metrics Over Meaning

In Agile, metrics are supposed to guide teams—not control them. Yet time and time again, teams fall into the trap of letting their charts and numbers dictate success. The burn chart is sloping beautifully, velocity is climbing, and every story is marked "done." By all accounts, things look great... until someone tries to actually use the product. That’s when the cracks show.

Here’s the rub: Metrics like velocity and burndown are tools, but they get misused as trophies. The obsession starts small—leaders want to see "steady progress," so the team cranks out as many stories as possible. But soon, standups turn into performance interrogations rather than collaborative check-ins​. Team members prioritize finishing tasks over building something truly functional​. Metrics start running the show, turning Agile into a rigid race of meaningless outputs.

This is what we call the Progress Pageant. Teams sprint faster and faster to hit story point goals, only to realize too late that they’ve accumulated a mountain of half-baked features and technical debt​​. Meanwhile, the product vision becomes foggier than ever, and stakeholders grow increasingly frustrated as what they really need gets lost in the shuffle.

When Agile becomes a numbers game, it undermines everything the philosophy encourages and frameworks support: collaboration, adaptation, and delivering real value. In this state, your team is not Agile—you’re just agitated.

So how do teams end up here? Often, it’s a combination of external pressure, micromanagement, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what metrics are meant to do​​. 

Let's break it down.

When Metrics Become the Goal

When teams elevate metrics from helpful guideposts to the ultimate goal, the results are... less than Agile. Instead of delivering high-value products, they produce a Progress Pageant—all shiny reports but no substance. This fixation on numbers has several major consequences, each eroding the core principles of Agile.

Loss of Product Vision

In a healthy Agile environment, the product vision acts as a guiding star. But when teams chase story points and chart perfection, that vision gets blurry. Priorities become scattered as developers rush to close tickets rather than ask whether the features they're building are solving the right problems​. 

Technical Debt Piles Up

"Just get it done, we’ll optimize later." Famous last words. Chasing velocity often leads to shortcuts in code quality, performance, and security​. Non-functional requirements (NFRs) like scalability and maintainability are treated as afterthoughts, resulting in fragile systems that crumble under real-world usage​. The result? Teams end up in a perpetual "clean-up sprint," fighting fires they created in their rush to meet arbitrary targets.

Decreased Team Morale

Burn charts and velocity targets might make leadership smile, but inside the team, the mood is far from celebratory. Developers become frustrated when their work is reduced to a numbers game​. They know they’re shipping incomplete or poorly thought-out solutions, but feel powerless to change the process. Over time, this leads to disengagement, burnout, and ultimately, turnover. Agile, which thrives on trust and empowerment, gets reduced to micromanagement with a shiny veneer.

Reclaiming Agile

Metrics as a Guide, Not a Goal

Metrics aren’t the enemy—they’re just misunderstood. When used correctly, they provide valuable insights into team health, progress, and areas for improvement. But Agile isn’t a numbers game. Success isn’t measured by a flawless burn chart; it’s measured by delivering working software that meets user needs​​. The key is to shift from chasing metrics to letting them guide conversations about continuous improvement.

So how do you reclaim metrics and make them work for your team instead of against it?

Define Success Beyond the Numbers

Start by redefining what success means for your team and stakeholders. It’s not about how many stories were completed or how steep the burndown slope is. Success is delivering value that meets real needs.

Ask questions like:

• How much of our work is focused on delivering innovative solutions that add real value to users?

• Are we automating enough of our testing to ensure consistent, reliable releases?

• Are we catching and resolving defects early within the team, or are too many issues being reported by clients or end-users?

• How frequently are completed tasks being reopened for rework, and what’s driving this?

• How quickly are we able to complete work once it enters an active state?

• How long does it take to move from code merge to production deployment?

• Are problems identified during retrospectives being resolved?

Finally, the question disengaged leaders and team members dread is: Are users engaging with and completing the intended use cases for new features?

Metrics should support these broader goals, not replace them​​. 

Prioritize Outcomes, Not Outputs

Agile isn’t about cramming as many story points as possible into a sprint. Focus on outcomes by anchoring your work in a clear "why"​. Every feature or task should contribute to solving a business or user problem.

Here’s an example: Instead of just delivering a feature that "swims, burrows, and climbs," define what success looks like for each of those abilities. Does the feature help users achieve their goal efficiently and reliably? If not, it's time to revisit your priorities.

By keeping the conversation centered on outcomes, you can prevent scope creep and wasted effort​.

Reframe Metrics as Feedback Tools

Metrics should fuel reflection, not performance anxiety. Use retrospectives and demos to discuss what the numbers are telling you. For example:

• If velocity dropped, what caused it? Were there blockers or technical challenges?

• If the burn chart looks good, is it because teams focused on easy wins over meaningful work?

Agile thrives on these continuous feedback loops​​. Use metrics to ask better questions and experiment with solutions, not to punish or pressure the team.

Practical Solutions

Bringing Value Back to the Forefront

It’s time to move beyond the peacock parade of vanity metrics and focus on delivering real value. Agile isn’t about making dashboards look good—it’s about solving real problems for users and stakeholders​. Here are practical steps your team can take to re-center on outcomes and build meaningful products.

Define Product Goals and Outcomes Clearly

Every sprint and feature should be tied to a clear goal. What problem are you solving? What does success look like from the user’s perspective?​

For example:

• Instead of just building "a report feature," define how quickly the report should load, how users will interact with it, and what insights it should deliver​.

• Establish acceptance criteria that go beyond functionality—performance, usability, and security should all be baked into the definition of "done."

Use Metrics as Health Checks, Not KPIs

Metrics should provide insight, not dictate behavior. Think of them like a health check for your team and product. Use them to ask questions and trigger improvement discussions​.

Example questions to explore:

• Velocity: Is it stable, or are we facing hidden blockers that affect consistency?

• Burn Chart: Are we finishing tasks but failing to deliver real value in increments?

• Story Completion: Are stories being closed, but with frequent scope creep or rework?

In retrospectives, analyze the data but focus on actions that lead to better outcomes, not just prettier charts​.

Keep Stakeholders Grounded in Reality

Stakeholders often push for aggressive timelines and flashy numbers to meet external pressures​. Push back by reframing the conversation around sustainable delivery and incremental value.

Strategies include:

• Frequent Demos: Show tangible progress, even if it’s not perfect. Help stakeholders understand that early iterations are part of the Agile process​.

• Communicate Trade-offs: Be transparent about how requests affect timelines and quality. “We can hit this deadline, but at the risk of this specific technical debt. Is that worth it?”​

• Align on Priorities: Collaborate to rank must-have features versus stretch goals, keeping the focus on what will deliver the most value​.

Agile Is About Outcomes

Agile isn't a race to rack up story points or create the most impressive dashboard. It's a journey of delivering continuous, meaningful value to users and stakeholders. Yet, too often, teams get trapped in the Progress Pageant, where outputs outshine outcomes. The burn chart looks like art, but the product barely works. We’ve all been there—and it’s time to break free.

The truth is, no metric will ever replace the value of a working product that solves real problems​. Agile thrives on iteration, reflection, and adaptation, which means we must constantly ask ourselves: Are we delivering value or just going through the motions?

Reclaiming Agile means shifting the focus back to outcomes. Let your metrics guide improvement, not define success. Build trust with stakeholders through transparency and collaboration. Center your sprints on clear goals that align with user needs. And don’t just celebrate the numbers—celebrate when the product works beautifully, and your users are delighted​​.

So, the next time your team gathers around a dashboard, don’t be a pleasant pheasant:

• Is this burn chart helping us deliver a better product?

• Are we aligned on what success really looks like?

• How can we improve both the process and the product in the next sprint?

Agile isn’t perfect, but that’s the point. It’s a way of being built for learning and adapting. If you let outcomes—not outputs—drive your progress, you’ll find that the charts take care of themselves.

Now, go out there and build something great.