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Tracking the progress in Scrum

Last post 11:29 am January 25, 2017 by Sanjay Saini
4 replies
06:26 pm January 24, 2017

In the Scrum glossary (https://www.scrum.org/Resources/Scrum-Glossary) it is said that Velocity, that is defined as "an indication of the average amount of Product Backlog turned into an Increment" is tracked by the Development Team. Whereas, in the guide, The Product Owner tracks the total work remaining to reach a goal. I am a bit confused about the body responsible of tracking the progress in Scrum.

Thank you in advance for your replies.


08:22 pm January 24, 2017

Mustafa, who is interested in velocity and why?
Velocity is used for two important purposes:
- for Scrum planning. We can use it to calculate the number of sprints necessary to complete the release and at sprint planning to help determine a team's capacity
- as a diagnostic metric that the team can use to evaluate and improve its use of Scrum.
Since velocity is used by Scrum Team, a team member who sees it needs updating should do so


08:35 pm January 24, 2017

At the same time, a product owner is responsible for the product's success. Therefore, he/she is ordering the items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions; and Optimizing the value of the work the Development Team performs. As a result he/she tracks the progress as well, but in a different way


02:10 am January 25, 2017

@ Oleksii - Please elaborate on your thought when you mentioned "PO tracks the progress as well, but in a different way" what are those ways? Do you mean Release progress? Time to complete certain features or n number of functionality by certain date depending upon current velocity?


11:29 am January 25, 2017


Scrum guide doesn't mention about the Velocity explicitly anywhere.

For me Velocity is the rate at which Dev Team is running and PO uses this to predict how much time will they take to reach the destination.

He can use any predictive tool, practice not necessary Velocity

This is from Scrum guide


The Product Owner discusses the Product Backlog as it stands. He or she projects likely completion dates based on progress to date (if needed);


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