Your Sprint Velocity Looks Great — Until the CFO Asks for ROI

Velocity charts rise, burndown graphs fall — yet business leaders quietly ask the same question:

“So, what did we actually achieve?”

We’re proud when velocity improves sprint-on-sprint, and our burndown charts look picture-perfect.
But when the conversation shifts from speed to strategy, we often find ourselves in silence.

💡 Here’s the truth:
If those features don’t move a customer metric, increase adoption, or reduce cost — the business sees no tangible gain.

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🎯 Enter “Business Value Delivered” (BVD)

Business Value Delivered (BVD) is the missing bridge between Agile execution and strategic impact.

It forces us to ask powerful questions:

• Did this sprint increase customer satisfaction or retention?

• Did it accelerate revenue, reduce cycle time, or eliminate waste?

• Did it align with our OKRs and organizational goals?

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🧭 Bringing BVD to Life

Here’s how teams can embed Business Value into every sprint:

1. Tie backlog items to measurable business outcomes – revenue, customer retention, security, innovation, or sustainability.

2. Quantify expected outcomes during sprint planning — e.g., “5% cost reduction” or “+3% in active users.”

3. Discuss realized value in sprint reviews — not just story points completed.

4. Visualize BVD metrics alongside velocity and burndown — to connect delivery with impact.

When BVD becomes part of your sprint conversation, Agile delivery starts reflecting financial, customer, and operational KPIs — a direct line of sight to ROI.

Teams feel empowered when they see how their work grows the business.
Leaders gain confidence when decisions are driven by value, not velocity.

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💬 Because when the CFO walks in, velocity won’t speak for you — value will.

The real measure of agility isn’t how fast you deliver —
but how deeply your delivery moves the business forward.

#AgileLeadership #BusinessValue #AgileTransformation #PMI #ProductManagement #Scrum #DigitalTransformation #ValueDrivenDelivery #AgileMetrics #Leadership #ROI #ProgramManagement #EnterpriseAgility #OKRs #BusinessAgility

Kanplan - “Backlog meets Kanban”

How it began?

I have always believed that success of any agile methodology purely depends on the team as they play a vital role in making sure the ever changing needs to the software are met with quality and on-time delivery for a great product to be delivered. 

The key however lies in understanding how better we as a team are ready to understand fixed and fluctuating priorities and if we need a mix of both to deliver a great software. Agile methodology has always excited me - have been working on Scrum and Kanban framework for more than 4-5 years. I have always been curious to know and envision combining both frameworks without compromising on the ownership and after a bit of research I found 'Kanplan'

Introduction to Kanplan

Kanplan is a mixed methodology which combines the features of both Scrum and Kanban software framework. It will be ideal for teams who want their backlog to be refined but their priorities are fluctuating so need a flexible timeline to deliver it unlike scrum which is time-boxed.

In simple words, Kanplan enables teams to combine the planning setup of Scrum with the process flexibility of Kanban as it provides visibility to planning goals, work-in-progress tasks and thus clearly organizing the team's to-do list.

How does Kanplan work?

• Teams create a column for backlog where the items can be prioritized and organized.
• Once the backlog grooming is done, the tasks can be moved from the Kanban backlog to appropriate columns based on status onto the Kanban board.
• Before moving these tasks onto the board, the tasks needs to be assigned to an appropriate person working on them.

How does Kanplan look like?

Here is a glimpse of how a Kanplan looks like on Jira:

The Kanplan feature – now available in both Jira Software Cloud and Server – introduces a wide column backlog with issues in a list view. This splits the Kanban Board into two different screens; the backlog for grooming and the Kanban board for the engineering team to select and move tasks through the workflow.