I gave the wrong answer in a job interview recently. I was asked what I would do if a team’s velocity went down. And I answered that I found velocity to be the least interesting metric of a team.
The follow-up question was on burndown charts. I said they were a great way to measure if the team is putting Jira issues into Done.
I know what the “right” answers were.
That velocity is a metric of planning and predictable delivery. That a Scrum Master should measure velocity regularly and investigate what’s contributing to any changes in order to get the team’s velocity to a predictable state.
That the intention of burndown charts – also monitored regularly by the Scrum Master and shared with the team – is to measure sustainable delivery.
But what I really think is you should know these things already, without the charts.
What I really think is we care too much about velocity and burndown charts. And numbers. And metrics. Because they’re comforting. And they give us something easier to point to when things aren’t working. Much easier than talking about whatever is really happening with the team, which is more complicated than what a chart can tell us.
What I really think is we put too much on story points and not enough on value that’s being delivered to the customer. Not enough on the people on the team and what they’re going through.
Velocity doesn’t matter if a team doesn’t have what they need to do their work.
Burndown charts don’t matter if we’re not creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint that we present to key stakeholders to collaborate on what to do next.
Let’s move beyond numbers.
What are you delivering? And how is your team doing?
You don’t need charts for that.
Photo by Ussama Azam on Unsplash.