Agile & Scrum Practice Question 10: Velocity Misuse
Agile & Scrum · Test 1 · question 10 of 10
A director wants to rank three Scrum Teams by velocity, set each a target of +20% velocity per quarter, and tie bonuses to hitting it. She asks the Scrum Master to roll this out. Which response is most consistent with the Scrum Guide and the Agile Manifesto?
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Answer:
The Scrum Guide doesn't mention velocity at all. What it does say is that "The Developers who will be doing the work are responsible for the sizing", and that knowing their past performance makes Developers "more confident ... in their Sprint forecasts". Velocity is a team's own forecasting aid, in that team's own units. Turn it into a target with money attached and the easiest way to hit +20% is to inflate estimates, so the number goes up and stops meaning anything. The Agile Manifesto points to the real measure: "Working software is the primary measure of progress", in Scrum terms, Increments that meet the Definition of Done.
- A is wrong: normalizing units doesn't change the incentive. Once velocity is a ranked, bonus-linked target it still gets gamed, and it is still being used as a performance measure rather than a forecast. - C is wrong: it takes sizing away from the Developers, which directly contradicts the Guide, and makes the Scrum Master an estimator rather than someone who serves the team. - D is wrong: hours logged measure effort, not value. It swaps one misused proxy for a worse one and ignores the Manifesto's principle about working software.
References: The 2020 Scrum Guide - Product Backlog and Sprint Planning; Principles behind the Agile Manifesto