If you can't measure it, stop producing it!

Eureka!
I often have that euphemistic feeling throughout my career! And when I do, I try to use every opportunity to bring up that subject in every conversation. And with every eureka feeling, I like to think eventually I will have the ultimate answer to agile development. Just like theoretical science, where scientists try to figure out the theory of everything.
I'm talking about producing Value. You probably think: 'is that all?' Well, yes and no.

You know I often talk about creating value and why you should pursue that every time. I still totally agree on that, but to accomplish that, I have an addition! I know a good practice how to produce good value. In short, the answer is: talk about value.
The problem is, you can't just think about value, or just try to talk about it, you need a reason to do so! Any idea how to create a reason? I really think I'm not thé best Scrum Master ever, but I wonder how I didn't see this revelation before, while it is so obvious.
As a team, you need to realize that the product you think is valuable to your customer, should actually be as valuable as you thought it was. The only way to do that is to measure your value after you delivered it! As simple as that!

Imperative!

So before you drag your User Stories into your sprint, you think about how to measure the value you want to produce. And a very simple rule is: if you can't think of any way to measure it, you don't produce value! On the other hand, if you are experimenting and thus don't know if you actually are producing value, you need to know if it turned out positively and you have to measure it as well. In all cases it is imperative to create a plan to measure your value.

It's up to you to think about how to measure value for every feature in specific. It could be customer experience, performance or just basically that customers can do their job, maybe in the most primitive way. For example, if a customer's work normally takes half an hour and with your change it should be reduced to half the time, you are obliged to measure that!
There are a number of ways to measure value, because there is a great variety of solutions. Challenge yourself to always let this way of thinking be part of your refinement or planning!

Last note: while developing, you probably have to tweak the way of your initial thought of measurement. Don't hesitate to do that!