🚦 The Hidden Flaws of Velocity: Why It’s Not a True Productivity Measure

The Flaws of Using Velocity as a Productivity Measure

What is Velocity?

Velocity measures how much work a team completes during a sprint. It is calculated as:

Velocity = Total Story Points Completed in a Sprint

What Are Story Points?

Story points estimate the effort, complexity, and time needed to complete a task. They use numbers (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) to describe how difficult a task is, where "1" is simple, and "8" is complex.

For example:

• A “1-point task”: Adding a new button on a webpage.

• A “5-point task”: Creating a new form that connects to a database.

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Why Velocity Falls Short

1. More Output Doesn’t Mean More Value

⚠️Flaw: Teams focus on completing tasks, not solving problems.
💡 Example: A team adds five small features to a product to boost Velocity, but customers actually wanted one well-designed feature.

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2. Encourages Gaming the System

⚠️Flaw: Teams might inflate story points to make their Velocity look better.
💡 Example: Instead of estimating a task as "2 points," a team labels it as "5 points" to show higher Velocity for the sprint—even though the work hasn’t changed.

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3. Ignores Important but Invisible Work

⚠️Flaw: Tasks like fixing bugs or improving code quality aren’t included in story points.
💡 Example: A team spends a week fixing critical bugs, but since those bugs weren’t assigned story points, the Velocity for the sprint is “0.” This makes it seem like the team didn’t work hard, even though they delivered value.

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4. Can Lead to Burnout

⚠️Flaw: Constantly pushing for higher Velocity can stress the team.
💡 Example: A team completes 40 story points in a sprint, but the manager demands 50 next time. The team works overtime, skips breaks, and gets burned out, leading to mistakes and decreased morale.

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5. Misrepresents Cross-Team Collaboration

⚠️Flaw: Velocity doesn’t show delays caused by dependencies between teams.
💡 Example: A backend team finishes their API tasks (30 points), but the frontend team is stuck waiting for feedback from the design team. The Velocity looks good for the backend, but the project as a whole is delayed.

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6. Fails to Account for Innovation and Experimentation

⚠️Flaw: Teams might avoid taking risks or experimenting because these don’t guarantee immediate output.
💡 Example: A team skips trying a new AI feature because it might take 2 sprints to figure out, even though it could significantly improve the product. Instead, they stick to small, safe tasks to maintain their Velocity.

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7. Can Lead to Local Optimization

⚠️Flaw: Teams optimize for their own Velocity rather than the product’s overall success.
💡 Example: A team builds three features (20 points) without checking if those features align with customer needs. The product manager later decides to remove those features, wasting the effort.

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A Better Way to Measure Productivity

📖 As Accelerate puts it:
"Measuring performance by outputs like Velocity often leads to focusing on the wrong goals. Instead, focus on metrics that measure outcomes, such as speed and quality of delivery."

Here are better alternatives:

• ✅ Lead Time for Changes: How quickly can a team deliver new features or fixes?

  • Example: From idea to deployment, it takes 2 days.

• ✅ Deployment Frequency: How often does the team release updates?

  • Example: Releasing updates twice a week shows progress.

• ✅ Change Failure Rate: How often do releases cause issues?

  • Example: Only 1 out of 10 deployments causes a rollback.

Conclusion

🚀 Velocity is great for planning but falls short as a productivity metric. Focus on outcome-driven metrics to deliver real value to customers.