#94: Understanding Velocity in Agile: A Guide for Predictability
By TimeKal AI on June 9th, 2024
Measuring Capacity, Not Performance
Velocity is a measure of the amount of work a team can tackle during a single Sprint. It is calculated at the end of the Sprint by totaling the points for all fully completed User Stories.
How to Use Velocity:
- Forecasting: By knowing the average velocity over several sprints, a team can predict how many sprints it will take to complete the work in the Product Backlog.
- Capacity Planning: It helps a team understand how much work to pull into the next Sprint Planning session.
Important Considerations:
- It's Not a Performance Metric: Velocity should never be used to compare teams. Each team's pointing scale is unique to them.
- It's an Average: Velocity will fluctuate. It is most useful as an average over time to help with future planning.
Visualizing your work on a Task Tracker is the first step to being able to calculate velocity.