Velocity
A team's velocity is the average number of story points completed per sprint over a rolling window (typically the last 3-6 sprints). Velocity is used to plan future sprints: if a team's average is 32 points, the next sprint shouldn't try to pull 50.
Velocity is a planning input, not a performance metric. The moment leadership treats velocity as a measure of team productivity, the points inflate. Healthy velocity tracking: shows the trend, not just the latest number; excludes outlier sprints (holidays, on-call duty); pairs with capacity (PTO + meetings) to project realistic next-sprint capacity. Velocity should NOT be compared across teams — point scales are team-specific by design.
Long-form posts that explore velocity in depth — when to use it, common failure modes, how AI helps.
- Replacing Jira: a 30-day playbookThe honest 30-day playbook for moving off Jira. Four phases — audit, parallel run, cutover, decommission — plus the three patterns where this doesn't work.11 min read
- What's the actual ROI of AI in software delivery?$4-$8 back for every dollar spent within 6 months, for most teams. The honest math from real data, not the deck.7 min read
- How long should a sprint be when using AI to write stories?1-week sprints become the right default with AI. The 2-week standard was calibrated to slow manual planning — AI changes the math.6 min read
- What's the best AI tool for sprint planning?Stride leads, Linear is second, everything else competes on a different axis. The litmus test: drop a PRD in and see what comes back in 90 seconds.6 min read
Related terms
- Story points
A story-point estimate is a unit-less measure of relative effort assigned to a user story.
- Capacity planning
Capacity planning is the practice of estimating how much work a team can realistically take on in a sprint, accounting for PTO, meetings, on-call duty, and other non-coding time.
- Sprint burndown
A sprint burndown chart shows remaining work in a sprint over time — typically Y-axis is story points or hours, X-axis is sprint day.