Churn Rate: The Silent Killer of Team Efficiency

There are a number of measures we coaches use to identify opportunities for squads and teams to improve and last week I had an opportunity to talk through some of these with a Crew Leader I work with. I know that most of my posts focus on mindset, or ways of thinking and behaving. Today I want to talk about one of the metrics that we coaches use to help see that there may be some structural challenges that are impacting the way our teams work.

As we have learned, the true measure of a high-performing team isn't how fast they move, nor how much stuff they produce.  Instead these teams are measured by the outcomes (results) they achieve and how efficiently they achieve them.  In order to produce intended outcomes in a sustainable way, teams need to be stable and predictable. 

Teams that are regularly interrupted with emergency tasks and unplanned work are statistically less likely to achieve intended outcomes1.  As leaders, it's easy to get caught in the daily swirl of "doing" and measuring output, but we do have access to some metrics other than how fast and how much.

 

Agile frameworks often provide the ability to measure something called Churn Rate.  Churn (or Scope Churn) Rate is a metric that measures how many unplanned or unanticipated work items are injected into a team over a sprint or some other kind of iteration (fixed period of time.)  A higher churn rate means that a team is adding and removing stories or tasks to their sprint plan after that plan has been committed to.  It means that work that wasn’t originally promised to be completed is being introduced to the teams to-do list, and putting the work that was promised at risk. Think about it this way…

A team goes through sprint planning: reviews their sprint goals, sizes their stories, makes adjustments, negotiates and agrees to complete 20 things over the next sprint.  Those things are communicated by the team’s leader (the Product Owner) and to stakeholders as what will be achieved over the upcoming sprint.  They set expectations.  

Then, over the course of the 2 week sprint, another team leader comes and asks for the team to “do something quick to help them out,” or a manager taps on a team member’s shoulder and instructs them to complete a set of tasks that are outside of the team’s sprint plan. These things take up time and energy that the team is not able to put into their original sprint plan, which means the team is not completing everything on their original sprint plan.  Things that had been communicated to others as being scheduled to complete end up being delayed.  These are examples of Churn (or Scope Churn.) 

In both iterative (like Scrum) and flow-based frameworks, a high Churn Rate is the silent killer of team effectiveness and efficiency. When Churn happens, the precious focus of the team is shattered putting the sprint plan at risk and destroying any predictability in the team’s rhythm. In flow based frameworks, Churn includes the work that flows erratically through the workflow, or even having to repeat steps. Regardless of the source, Churn completely undermines the team’s ability to improve their efficiency, and focus on the highest priority work. 

High churn isn't usually a team problem; it’s a sign that there is something in the environment around the team causing unclear prioritization, poor problem definition, or a lack of psychological safety to challenge scope change or say no.

What to do if you see high churn coming from the team.

• Be Patient.  Look at the Churn Rate over several sprints or iterations.  Maybe even a couple of Quarters worth.  Do you see patterns in the Churn Rate?  Are some sprints much higher than others?  A single high Churn Rate measure isn’t all that much to worry about.  Seeing High Churn sprint over sprint is an indication that there is something to explore.

• Be Curious.  Look for root causes. Where is the churn coming from?  What kind of requests are being introduced that are so important that they can’t be addressed in a normal planning cycle?  Are the requests coming from a specific other team? Churn isn’t the problem - Churn is the measure that you may have something to improve.

• 
  Think Outside the Box.  Simply saying no to all “out of plan” requests is a recipe for problems. Instead identify the root cause and ask yourself challenging questions.  Do we need to think about how work is assigned?  Are we seeing hints that perhaps teams aren’t organized correctly?  Do we have something broken in our communication patterns?  

• Experiment.  There is no sure-fire way to improve a Churn Rate without negatively impacting something else in the systems, so my advice is to make small, measured, time-boxed changes and see how that impacts the team's ability to deliver.

• Repeat.  Things change… a lot!  This means that there will always be opportunities to make improvements to the way a team is structured, operates, and interacts with their stakeholders.  

A word of caution I try to say often and loudly!  Metrics are not the reason.  Metrics are clues that something around the team may not be working to help the team be as effective, efficient or engaged as they could be. There is a big difference between “What can we do to improve this team’s Churn,” and “What is causing this team’s Churn to be so high?" and, "If we eliminated that, would the team be more efficient or effective?”  

Want to know more about Churn Rate and how your teams could be more effective, efficient and engaged?  Ask your Coach, or send me a message and we’ll talk!

 

We all win together!

Coach Dan