25
votes
Accepted
Is velocity a valid measure of team and process improvement?
Velocity is not a valid measure of team or process improvement.
Velocity, especially when it is based on Story Points, is extremely unstable. By itself, Velocity doesn't reflect the capacity of the ...
- 18.8k
21
votes
Accepted
Should velocity increase with time?
TL;DR
Should velocity increase with time?
The simplistic answer is that a project's velocity should only increase until the team has developed a stable, predictable cadence that can be maintained ...
- 49.4k
20
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Your problem is not that you have developers and non-developers (as you call the business analysis/product owner, the designer and the testers). Your problem is that these people have individual ...
- 14.5k
19
votes
Should we take into account scope changes to the Sprint to measure the team efficiency?
Velocity is not a metric for team performance. It's a measurable dimension you can attach to the work being performed in the sprint so that the team can forecast future work in future sprints (see the ...
- 14.5k
17
votes
Accepted
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Your team appears to do mini-waterfall development within each sprint, which is a known anti-pattern, as you don't get the collaboration within the team that make agile methods successful.
Also, ...
- 2,730
11
votes
How to implement unit testing with a small Scrum team without spending half the Sprint unit-testing stories?
My devs are not used to unit testing framework and are still learning
This will improve over time as they gain more experience.
There are only 2 of them and each with their specialty (Front-end and ...
- 8,348
11
votes
Should we take into account scope changes to the Sprint to measure the team efficiency?
TL;DR
Your management team needs to be educated on how Scrum works, and to modify its key performance indicators to be outcome-based rather than effort-based. Its current approach to metrics is not ...
- 49.4k
10
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
You are doing a lot of good things already, but I would also recommend the following:
Reduce how much you bring into each sprint
Keep on reducing it until the testing bottleneck disappears and the ...
- 19.1k
9
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Other comments here all ring true: too waterfall-y, not enough team responsibility, etc. but I'd like to emphasize a point made just once in other answers: you're absolutely setting goals too high. ...
- 191
8
votes
Accepted
If Velocity should not be used for future estimations, what is it good for?
Sorry, but that is not what the article says at all. The purpose of measuring the past is predicting the future and no one in that threads claims different.
What is claimed though and I absolutely ...
- 8,348
7
votes
Accepted
Team velocity declined after legacy declaration
Stop Abusing Velocity
I know it is not common for management to rely on velocity as a measure of productivity. But in this company, velocity and individual points are how teams and individuals are ...
- 49.4k
6
votes
How do you measure time units in sprint velocity?
Story Points Are Never Time Estimates
Is doing:
S = 1/2 a day (maximum)
M = a day (maximum)
L = 2 days (maximum)
a good approach?
Absolutely not. Story points measure ...
- 49.4k
6
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
The first question I would want to consider in your position is:
Are the issues being seen in test because the code is unreliable, or because the requirements have not been understood?
The ...
- 161
6
votes
Should we include the stories done by part-time team members in team velocity
Teams Have Velocity; Team Members Don't
Tracking velocity at the individual level is a common agile implementation error. It often occurs when teams or organizations are misusing velocity as a ...
- 49.4k
5
votes
Accepted
How to calculate velocity when using fibonacci estimates
TL;DR
Calculating velocity is relatively straightforward if and only if you treat it as a rough estimate for forecasting. If your metrics imply great precision, you're using velocity wrong.
Having ...
- 49.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Sprint planning, review: velocity,capacity, forecast and how this values relate?
Velocity is not something that is calculated, it is measured. Velocity is the amount of work that is completed in a Sprint. In this particular case, since you estimate work in Story Points, you will ...
- 18.8k
5
votes
Velocity of the team
The calculation part of velocity is straight forward as you can just sum up the story points completed in each sprint and divide it by number of iterations.
This will be 23 in your case for the data ...
5
votes
Velocity of the team
Usually when people talk about velocity, they actually mean average velocity, so you could just average all of those. Now, teams change and improve over time, so often times we'll use a rolling ...
- 16.8k
5
votes
Is there a relationship between technical debt and velocity?
TL;DR
Velocity and technical debt aren't directly correlated, and velocity can't measure technical debt directly. However, velocity (when properly implemented) can act as a detective control to ...
- 49.4k
5
votes
Is velocity a valid measure of team and process improvement?
Your concern is absolutely correct. Velocity as a team improvement metric is problematic because an improving team will often see their velocity increase but just because the velocity increases doesn'...
- 16.8k
5
votes
Trying to understand my CFD
The CFD shows where you have a potential road block in your workflow. The width of each of color represents how many work items are in each step of your flow, from backlog through done. What you are ...
- 37k
5
votes
Accepted
How to grasp in a Scrum Sprint the fact that the newest Team member is consuming a significant time from other Team members?
When you onboard a new team member there are two things you need to do:
Reflect the change in your capacity to do work
Inform your stakeholders of the impact of the onboarding
It is up to you how ...
- 19.1k
5
votes
Should we take into account scope changes to the Sprint to measure the team efficiency?
In the Scrum framework, the team does not commit to a body of work. The commitment made by the Developers is to the Sprint Goal, which is created through a collaborative effort between the Product ...
- 18.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Should we count a story that is no longer required by Client/PO/Management in our velocity?
We have finished a story which is no more required by PO/Management. Surely this story is not going to add any business value. What to do in this case? Should we count the effort in velocity or not?
...
- 49.4k
4
votes
How to estimate sprint velocity when there is a change in story points in scrum
This seems like some kind of theoretical question, but I can give a few pointers on how to approach this.
You've already identified:
Velocity (the number of points that can be done in a sprint)
...
- 1,289
4
votes
What does team's velocity measure?
Velocity measures how much work the team can complete per sprint, given a stable team and a common understanding of the complexity of the items that they work on.
It's usually measured in number of ...
- 14.5k
4
votes
How to grasp in a Scrum Sprint the fact that the newest Team member is consuming a significant time from other Team members?
Any new joiner to the team will require time to learn the works of the project and will require time spent from others in the team to help them and offer support. Nobody hits the ground running, no ...
- 14.5k
3
votes
Velocity of the team
TL;DR
You can express velocity in a number of ways. The two most common are the sliding average and the range. A sliding average is generally easier to calculate, and often provides "good enough" ...
- 49.4k
3
votes
pivotal tracker chore: At what rate velocity should increase
It depends vastly on several different factors, perhaps most importantly on which stage the Team is in in the 'Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing' process.
If the Team is in the Performing stage (...
- 14.8k
3
votes
Velocity at different project phases
My suggestion is to look at a development life-cycle that I've seen used in some "Waterfall Release" companies using agile.
The key to this is the word "Potentially" as in "potentially releasable ...
- 12.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible