If you have been given little to no attention to the velocity of your development team, this may be time to change this. Velocity plays an important role in tracking in the Scrum and Agile Space. It provides your team insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of the way you operate. Also, it informs stakeholders about how you are progressing as a team from a single Sprint to another. Because of this, teams need to look for effective ways to improve scrum velocity. As teams increase their velocity, they can take on more work because of their increased ability to complete more work in every sprint. But it is important to note that high velocity does not have to mean achieving high quality or successful level. The following are ways teams can improve their velocity:
Do Not Switch Contexts
If members of a team concentrate on one task at a time, they can complete the task efficiently and promptly. Within Agile, context switching must be avoided. The switching can happen when a member needs to switch topics. Completing a task and picking up a new one can take away time. Also, this can drive a team’s velocity down. Increasing velocity can help teams avoid switching contexts over time.
Manage Resources
Development teams also ensure the stability of resources while they move sprints. Should a team lose one member, their velocity may decline. Also, if the team gets a new member, this individual could not increase team velocity the way the previous member did. Thus, it is important for teams to manage their resources and keep their members together.
Let Members Cross-Train Each Other
Team members must be taught everything. By allowing them to cross-train each other, the team can prevent bottlenecks and problems should a member become sick or leave the group for good. If a team only has one member who knows to code and this person leaves, the team will have to deal with the consequences. Increasing team velocity is possibly by cross-training and using knowledge transfer sessions. Everybody is a team member in Scrum.
Development teams must observe their velocity and calibrate to enhance it over time. Team velocity may drop or stay constant throughout a project. But teams can increase it by utilizing a rolling average of the few sprints for planning the next one. Anonymous outliers should be removed to get a better average. Also, it is essential not to compare velocity across teams because every team organically builds their velocity.
