DDAT journey two: velocity
Following my previous blog, in which I introduced the first data-driven journey, this blog focuses on journey number to: velocity. We'll have a look at what it is, how you can measure team engagement, how Agile Cockpit may help you measuring it and how it is being used in practice.
What is velocity?
Velocity is the speed at which a team processes an amount of work. It’s typically used to enable a team to forecast a Sprint and/or parts of the Product Backlog. It’s an empirical measure of things done in the past.
Velocity has become a very sensitive subject to discuss among many as it is often abused. While it cannot be compared across teams, teams themselves should be critical towards their own velocity and discuss it, as the discussions allows them to improve. Besides that, a team’s velocity helps them to forecast. Keeping track of velocity is thus necessary during any agile transformation and after.
How do you measure it?
It is typically measured by counting the number of work items (User Stories, tasks, bugs) a team has completed in an iteration, or the amount of Story Points it has completed. Any way to track it is fine, as long as it is transparent (ie. it measures only fully completed items that deliver value).
How can Agile Cockpit help to measure it and improve it?
Agile Cockpit provides insights into the speed of teams, which enables teams to challenge themselves to optimize that speed, either by taking out delays, hiring new people or coming up with smarter solutions. It provides an invitation to a conversation to get better teams, which deliver more value at a sustainable pace.
Velocity in practice
Below is a screenshot of the velocity report in action, as being used by ones of the teams at Agile Cockpit. Aside from this simple view, Agile Cockpit offers various different views, like the release planning view where the velocity is plotted against a release planning to provide even more valuable insights.
Closing
Would you like to know more about velocity? Please reach out to us via your preferred channel for more information or a demo of Agile Cockpit.