What is a mission test? — making progress on step at a time

Purpose: Why we exist as a team

This post is the third in a series of mini articles on agile chartering inspired by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies' book Liftoff and Jim’s work as a coach helping teams create effective agile charters. These articles summarize the nine sub-elements of an agile charter which fall under the three agile charter elements Purpose, Alignment and Context. This post addresses Mission Tests, the third sub-element under Purpose.

Mission Tests: meaningful advancement along the path

Mission tests is the third sub-element under the Product element of an agile charter.

Product Vision: the “north Star” or reference point; the answer to “what and who is it all for?

The second sub-element, team mission, defines the boundaries of a specific team’s unique contribution towards the product. As noted in a previous post, team mission can be thought of as the path that the team takes to contribute to the product vision.

Team Mission: the path the Team takes

Mission tests

The third sub-element, mission tests, focuses on the work the team is currently doing. Mission tests are like steps the team is making along the path.

A mission test defines a clear difference or effect derived from the team’s action. This effect is measurable in such way that the team can say “yes, this happened” or “no, this did not happen”. Mission tests have a time limit or deadline. When the time expires, the team runs the mission test. Typically a team will have a handful of mission tests running simultaneously.

There are two types of mission tests: external and internal.

External mission tests

External mission tests define a meaningful advancement from the customer’s perspective such as a new or enhanced capability or feature. An example of an external mission test might be “The customer can make a payment on their balance due by June 5th.” This example external mission test defines the goal from the customer’s perspective, establishes clear pass/fail criteria and sets a deadline for running the test.

On June 5th, the team runs the mission test. Either the customer can make a payment on their balance due or they can not. If the mission test passes, the team creates a new mission test for what is now seen as the next valuable step. If the mission test fails, the team reflects on why the test failed and what to do next based on what has been learned.

Internal mission tests

Internal mission tests serve to build a better team in areas such as capability, competency or capacity. Internal mission tests exist solely to enable external mission tests. An example of an internal mission test might be “hire a designer by Tuesday.”

Revealing the way forward

When a mission test passes, the team moves further along the path. This new position often reveals new possibilities and options for the next step. The choice from among these options becomes the next mission test. The team optimizes value delivery by adapting their future work based on what they learn as they make their way along the path.

Now that you know what a mission test is, what of your team’s current in-flight work qualifies as a mission test?