What is velocity?

Velocity is an agile metric that helps determine the amount of work a Scrum team can accomplish in a sprint. Its indicator is calculated at each iteration of an agile project.
- Velocity is a macro planning tool, not a performance indicator and its momentary decline does not mean that the team has lost performance. It is a tool that allows you to make projections on the number of sprints necessary in order to achieve the “user stories” composing the “product backlog”.
- Velocity allows for detailed planning, it gives an end-of-project window and cannot be used to define the scope of a sprint or to define the work capacity of the Scrum team.
- Velocity is not a firm and definitive commitment, Because it evolves over time and its sum cannot be taken as a basis to estimate the capacity of the team. It is not because the team achieved 20 points of effort during the last sprint that it will do the same in the next one. This will depend on absences, obstacles encountered, technology used, experiences, ... It helps answer the question from stakeholders: “When will the project be completed?”
- It provides transparency on the processing and evolution of the product and cannot be used to compare the progress of several teams with each other., nor even that of members of the same team. The most important thing is that the velocity is relatively stable from sprint to sprint. A velocity that drops permanently can indicate a problem in the team and a velocity that increases sustainably can indicate a decline in quality and therefore sloppy deliverables.
- Velocity cannot be calculated as a percentage. It is obtained by adding the effort points (stories point) achieved over the sprint, and an average over the last 5 to 8 sprints. This calculation must not take into account the size of the team, members present at a given time, work capacity, technical debt, absences, etc.stories point” completed at the end of the sprint are completed according to the “definition of done".
- Velocity represents the team's past work capacity, over the last 5 sprints, and not its future capacity. We must stop taking tasks in the sprint in sprint planning because we have reached the velocity limit. If the Scrum team thinks she is capable of carrying out additional tasks, she must take these elements into the sprint backlog.
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