Value Driver

A Value Driver is a measurable activity or focus which impels movement toward the delivery of value. When achieved, a Value Driver should result in delivering something of value to your stakeholders.


 * As stated in the OpenAgile Primer, a Value Driver is best understood when it is S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound.
 * While an OpenAgile team's broad Goal is the output of their efforts, the Cycle Input is the prioritized list of Value Drivers. The Growth Facilitator is responsible for collecting and prioritizing the list of Value Drivers.
 * We use Consultative Decision-Making to explore all the items in the prioritized list of Value Drivers and decide which of these will be done in the current Cycle. All work is OpenAgile is prioritized in a list of Value Drivers.
 * Value Drivers encapsulate as many independent tasks as are necessary to satisfy the stakeholder; as such, all tasks included in a Cycle Plan are relative to one or more Value Drivers.

Examples of Value Drivers may include activities which create cost and/or time savings, research & development, service improvements, etc.

Case Study
In order to define and demonstrate the application of Value Drivers, we may study the actions of the OpenAgile community's own processes. In the sixth cycle plan of the OpenAgile community and its champions, the team identified many paths of activity and thus we can review their clear examples of Value Drivers and their implications.

Example Value Driver
"Articulate the Vision, Mission Statement, Goal, and Purpose of OpenAgile in a clear manner."

Facts to Consider

 * That text was written to paraphrase the community's desire to improve specific OpenAgile artifacts.
 * That text does not yet conform to S.M.A.R.T. format but the community may rewrite and improve it in subsequent progress meetings or the next engagement meeting.

Related Tasks
Armed with that text, which represents one Value Driver, the team indicated a few tasks which would serve to deliver said value:
 * Write-up and propose mission statement for OpenAgile.
 * Discuss proprosed mission statement for OpenAgile.

These two items provide the team with clearly-articulated actions for which anybody may volunteer and, futhermore, the team may choose to define additional tasks related to this stream of activity in future progress meetings or the next engagement meeting.

vs. Product Backlog Items
Value Drivers are not equivalent to Product Backlog Items (from Scrum). In OpenAgile, the following things are not true, but are true in Scrum:
 * Product Backlog Items at the top of the Product Backlog should fit within a single Sprint (Cycle)
 * the Product Owner is a final authority over the prioritization of Product Backlog Items