Viewed from Agile, the Scrum velocity is a measure of a team’s productivity towards delivering features over time. Velocity is calculated by Story Points in a Fibonacci Viewed from Agile, the Scrum velocity is a measure of a team’s productivity towards delivering features over time. Velocity is calculated by Story Points in a Fibonacci Scale. Agile Story Points determine how much a team can deliver during a Sprint and how much effort it requires.
The formula is: Velocity = Number of Agile Story Points Delivered/Number of Sprints.
Having measured their team’s Scrum velocity and realized that it is poor, Scrum Masters usually begin to force team members to work harder, which is a mistake. Instead of working more, I suggest working more efficiently. This is what we call working smarter and not harder. Here are some tips and tricks on how to improve your team’s productivity without going insane.
1. Visibility
To avoid miscommunication and to work smoothly, it’s better to keep a Scrum team small, between 3 to 9 people. With more people, it becomes difficult to keep track of all their activities. Daily Scrum meetings will impose more responsibility on team members for the delivery. Besides, dividing tasks into small subtasks and updating the Burndown Charts on a daily basis will optimize the working process and make it more visible, helping you to avoid multitasking and the art of not working at work.
2. Prevent Reworking
What really impedes a Scrum team’s progress is incomplete customer requirements or their frequent changes. A Scrum Master needs to make sure that stakeholders and the development team share the same vision of what needs to be built in the near future. Miscommunication and inaccuracy should be resolved in the early stages of a Scrum project. Bear in mind, it takes time to produce high-quality code and only a few minutes to destroy it. Having to majorly rework code is damaging not only to deadlines but also to overall employee satisfaction and morale.
3. Make Value From Sprint Retrospectives
It’s a known fact that many Scrum teams appear to overlook such important Agile rituals as the Retrospective Meeting. This is where you can discuss Story Points, define key impediments, and analyze Burndown and Velocity Charts. This is a must-attend event for everyone to see whether a team is performing well and that the project is coming along as expected. There are a bunch of retrospective games to make these meetings more interesting.
4. Keep Employee Morale High
Demotivated, exhausted employees bring little value to a company. To be a truly tight-knit team, all members should share the same values and goals and cultivate a strong ecosystem around the product or service they deliver. It is crucial to care not only about company success and profit but also about the team’s morale and satisfaction.
5. Implement Better Solutions
Routine manual work is indeed the biggest drain on the team’s velocity. Going by the numbers, saving 5 minutes per day for every employee in a 25 person organization will save a lot of man-hours. Automating those manual tasks with some powerful tools would really streamline daily workflows and increase overall employee efficiency.