How should a scrum master Answer
Manager : What is the total number of story point for this sprint?
Scrum Master : 80
Manager : What was our velocity last sprint?
Scrum Master : 100
Manager : why? and what did we do wrong that our velocity dropped?
"If you're a member of the Scrum Team, why can't you tell me what happened?"
Velocity is a planning metric, not a performance metric.
>> Velocity is a planning metric, not a performance metric
Exactly, and in addition to that it doesn't measure productivity or value delivered to the customer.
Did he ask if the team met the Sprint Goal?
Extremely great insight chris. Surely, velocity is planning metric not a performance metric.
Manager : why? and what did we do wrong that our velocity dropped?
Well, maybee because we made the DOD more stringent :-)
Thanks Guys for the helpful answers . I came across this question in my interview. So posted it here :)
Shweta, what was your response to the interview question?
My answer to the interviewer was "velocity doesn't depends on the capacity of the team and shouldn't be dependent on productivity or quality, we might have lower points for this sprint due to dev. capacity and few complex story cards which dev. feel would take more time to finish"
I have on more question for you all.Should the team maintain its average velocity in every sprint or the velocity for each sprint should be based on teams capacity?
Shweta, in my opinion you should be very cautious about using velocity as a means of judging team performance, or as a "target" for the team to try and reach each sprint.
Velocity is a reflective metric that measures team productivity. Such a metric can fluctuate for a multitude of reasons, such as: team member PTO, team roster changes, holidays, non-sprint meetings, learning, training, estimation (poorer or better), etc.
In my experience, there is usually a correlation between team capacity and team velocity, but such metrics should only be used as a guide for teams to determine how much work they can comfortably complete in a sprint.
What is far more important is understanding whether the team is producing value for the business. It should always be about the quality and value of the deliverables, not about the volume of work completed.