agile delivery what is velocity
Velocity can be a really great tool to help in identifying problems with a team as far as blockers, bugs and problems with the practices within the team. Without looking at official definitions here's my definition of what velocity is: Velocity is an abstract measure of a teams productivity towards delivering features over time. We measure velocity by working out an average number of agile points delivered sprint-on-sprint and dividing the total number of agile points delivered over X sprints by the number of sprints it has taken to deliver them. So velocity is: Velocity = Total number of Agile Points Delivered / Number of Sprints. Let's break the velocity statement down. When we refer to velocity as an “abstract measure”, what do we mean? To answer this question, we need to understand what makes up velocity. We said earlier it's an average of the number of agile points delivered. (in agile software development) Velocity is a term used in agile software development to illustrate the rate of progress for a team or a set of teams (i.e. a project/program). The simplest way to define velocity is: the number or user stories a team/project can do in one sprint (do here means that it really is done and potentially ready to ship). In agile, we need to discuss what our problems are so we can understand why the velocity may have dropped in the sprint and why our burndown was effected. Burndown: A chart of the number of points that were actually delivered against the number of points that formed part of the sprint contract This article examined the concepts behind velocity tracking and provided examples of the primary tools and techniques used to manage and measure a team's velocity within the scope of an Agile project. A few years ago in Dr. Dobb’s Journal I wrote about estimating on agile development projects. In that article I discussed burndown charts and how to extend them to show an estimation range. The basic observation is that there is really two velocities exhibited by a team, the gross velocity and the net velocity. The gross velocity which is the amount of work they complete in an iteration, which is what a regular burndown chart shows. The net velocity is the change in the amount of work still to do, which is the amount of work completed in an iteration less the added amount of functionality that iteration. One of the most important tools for effective velocity tracking is a set of accurate reports. Next I'll cover some of the most widely used reports for Agile project management and velocity tracking. Reports. Agile reporting is essential for accurate velocity tracking. Because velocity is a product of numbers gathered over time, it is vital to gather and record as much pertinent data as possible. Table 1 lists and explains some of the data points that you should record across iterations and projects: My thinking on velocity and Agile Estimation has evolved. 1  Simple estimation techniques work! Use the data you already have. 2  Story Points considered harmful, or why the future of estimation is really in our past. 3  A better way to predict project release date. 4  Focus on what matters, a #NoEstimates advocacy post. 5  The #NoEstimates how to. There are several major problems here. 1  The ratio of testers to developers appears to be too much. As a rule of thumb I would anticipate a ratio of 1:4 (1 tester to every 4 developers) is a sensible ratio. 2  Testers, along with product owners should always be ahead of current sprints. When you aren't delivering for one sprint, you notice. When you aren't delivering for two sprints, your scrum master notices. When you aren't delivering for months of sprints, management notices. A drop in velocity for an agile team can be a demoralising sight to witness for all of those involved. Using velocity tracking, project managers strive to measure and monitor the productivity of software developers and others participating in an Agile-based project. This article examines the concepts behind velocity tracking.
We measure velocity by working out an average number of agile points delivered sprint on sprint and dividing the total number of agile points delivered over X sprints by the number of sprints it has taken to deliver them.