Planning
Velocity
A historical measure of how much work a team has completed across previous sprints, usually expressed in story points or a similar unit.
What velocity is useful for
Velocity can help with rough forecasting and with spotting whether a team is planning wildly above or below its recent pattern.
Used carefully, it is a local planning signal. Used carelessly, it turns into a performance number and starts distorting behavior.
What to avoid
- Comparing one team's velocity against another
- Treating velocity as a productivity score
- Forcing estimates to rise just to make charts look better
Related terms
Keep exploring
Sprint Capacity
Planning
An estimate of how much delivery work a team can realistically take on in a sprint after accounting for availability, meetings, support load, and other overhead.
Open definition
Story Points
Estimation
A relative estimation unit teams use to express the size of work by combining effort, complexity, uncertainty, and risk rather than counting hours directly.
Open definition