“What are the common agile metrics people use?”

This may seem like a perfectly reasonable question on its face. But is it?

I see two problems here.

The first: What is an “agile metric”? I don’t really think such a thing exists. No metric is inherently “agile”. Agile teams will often watch certain metrics, of course. They often are (and indeed should be) the exact same metrics that a non-agile team uses. Remember: “agile” isn’t a business goal. Your metrics should be measuring business success, regardless of agile or not.

Second: What problem are you trying to solve? Metrics alone are meaningless. To quote W. Edwards Demming:

Data are not taken for museum purposes; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action.

So what action will your metrics help inform? If none, skip the metrics. If you know what decision you’re trying to make, that will tell you what metrics to measure.