Is my Velocity coupled with Productivity ?
Problem 1: One Scrum Team (Team-A) is working on a product development. Team-A is running at an average velocity of 50 story points. There are couple of scenarios here:
- Scenario 1: A new Scrum Team (Team-B) has been on-boarded along with Team-A.
- Scenario 2: The initial size of Team-A is 5 people. Now, I increased the size of Team-A to 9 people (i.e., I added 4 more).
What would be the impact of Velocity and Productivity of Team-A ?
If Velocity & Productivity increases or decreases, Why?
Are they (Velocity & Productivity) related to each other?
Does maturity of the Scrum Team (Team-A) impacts in any of the above scenario?
Problem 2: Velocity trend of Team-X is 26, 27, 26, 28, 27, ... (Velocity trend is almost constant here). On the other hand, Velocity trend of Team-Y is 46, 26, 36, 20, 40, ... (Velocity is fluctuating here). What can be inferred through this fluctuating Velocity trend? Can we assume Team-Y is delivering high value often whenever the velocity is going peak?
What could be the potential reasons for rising the velocity every alternate Sprint?
How Productivity is related to Value?
Please share your thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
None of the measurements stated express either productivity or value. Story points are a means for a team to get their arms around how much work they can take on.
There's nothing to indicate that any of the work was completed to release quality, that valuable Sprint Goals were met, or that any value is being released at all for a Product Owner to optimize.
Totally agree with what Ian has said.
As an aside, I would advise Team-Y to look for patterns that would explain why their velocity is so inconsistent. Perhaps their estimates are really inaccurate; perhaps they perform better when they have more items of a smaller size. Maybe they would benefit from using Kanban in addition to Scrum, to provide better visibility and control to their workflow, and identify bottlenecks and other impediments to the completion of planned work.
What would be the impact of Velocity and Productivity of Team-A ?
Increasing the capacity from 5 to 9 will very likely increase velocity, too. However, velocity is based on estimates. If new team members estimate differently, anything can happen. If new team members do not get on well with current team members, they can even reduce velocity.
We do not know what will happen to productivity. Adding 4 highly capable seniors to a team of 5 juniors will likely increase productivity. Adding 4 new guys with similar skills that the team already has will likely slightly decrease productivity since they have to afford more time on communication. Adding 4 persons with irrelevant skills and bad temper will probably strongly reduce productivity.
Are they (Velocity & Productivity) related to each other?
If productivity = velocity/capacity then of course they are, p = f(v). It is important to note that both are based on estimations with a huge potential error.
Does maturity of the Scrum Team (Team-A) impacts in any of the above scenario?
Impacts what?
What could be the potential reasons for rising the velocity every alternate Sprint?
Anything. E.g. there is a flaw in story sizing and the team is unable to complete stories in a single Sprint. Due to DoD, if they only deliver 70% of a story in Sprint 1, it has a value of 0 points. When they complete it in Sprint 2, they get all the points.
How Productivity is related to Value?
Loosely. These are stochastic variables. Some positive correlation is quite probable, though it is possible to deliver negative value (damage) with hard work;)