What is the Velocity Chart in Agile? How to Read and Calculate

Velocity and Velocity charts in agile play a crucial role when we are talking about project management. There are so many tools and metrics that are used by big organizations to make sure that their sprints are successful. So, if you are looking for a tool that could help in determining the amount of work a team could take up in an iteration or a sprint according to the agile methodology, Velocity charts can be your option. The below article contains the answer to the below question:

What is the Velocity chart in agile?

How to read the chart?

What are key factors to consider in velocity charts?

What are the benefits of velocity charts?

Now let’s begin to answer these questions in the article below and know a little more about velocity and Velocity charts in agile.

What is the Velocity Chart in Agile?

One of the important metrics used in the Scrum framework for agile is velocity. Today we will learn all about this and how with certified scrum master certification for project management, you can read the velocity chart and work on this metric for full productivity, flexibility as well as high-quality deliverables.

The velocity chart is used to determine how much work is being done by the team in a given sprint. Using this, a better and lucid view of the team’s overload and future prospects can be gained. It is a visual graphical representation of efforts that are put in by the team in terms of story points on the Y-axis against the Sprint which is on the X-axis.

This could be very beneficial when the budget planning and the resource allocation are needed to be done for the team. Having a look at the velocity chart scrum of the team, more precise allocation can be done which otherwise could have issues with the overall performance of the team and the project.

How to Read the Chart and Calculate Velocity?

As mentioned above, the Y-axis will represent the story points that were completed in the given sprint. If any workload is left for that effort, it will be rolled over to the next sprint. These story points are calculated against the sprint in which they are done.

The velocity of the team is calculated by taking an average of the estimates of efforts that are completed over the last sprints. As time moves and more data is available, this calculation becomes more reliable. The recent velocity of the team is a great factor in determining the current velocity the team is at and how much work can a team complete in a given sprint.

Also Read: Agile Velocity vs Capacity

What are Key Factors to Consider in Velocity Charts?

There are so many factors that are useful while we are looking for increasing the delivery speed of the team. This will make sure that the team is having the best use of these charts. Some of them are mentioned below:

The workload of the sprint

This is one of the main factors as this will determine the whole effort. There could be many items that are moved as backlogs from the previous sprint, so this needs to be calculated precisely. The scrum training for best project management and understanding more about sprint can be very helpful if you are looking to deliver a successful product.

Length of the sprint

Knowing if the sprint length is justified seeing the performance and delivery estimates for the project is very much important. What is the sprint length, will it suffice for the product delivery should be always in the mind while considering velocity charts.

The burndown chart

This burndown chart is used to showcase the action that the team is yet to complete as plotted against the amount of time that is left for the sprint.

Also Read: How to Calculate the Velocity in Scrum?

What are the Benefits of Velocity Charts?

Highlighting the issues

The team which is able to highlight their issue is more on the path of having better project delivery. Sometimes it is too late and the team cannot come back from the burn. Too many bugs in the system, miscommunication among the teammates, and low productivity in each sprint can be some of the factors that could come in the way and if these problems are recognized early in the project, better delivery can be ensured.

Know your team in a better way

The project managers or scrum masters with better CSM training will be able to know more about the team using these charts. The velocity of the team in each sprint which can be calculated using the velocity chart can be used to determine the team capacity and how much work they can deliver in the coming sprint.

With better estimates, the bottlenecks in the teams can be eliminated and each sprint can have efforts according to the team’s capacity.

Deliver faster and efficiently

Now the bottlenecks are addressed and the sprint planning is done in an efficient way, it becomes easier for the team to deliver products that are of high quality and on time as well. Moreover, if the team is running at a faster velocity, the team members can be redirected to the team with a lower velocity to maintain the balance on an organizational level. This will overall help in maintaining good product delivery strategies and have a successful sprint each time.

Conclusion

Now you know why a velocity chart can be one of the most useful metrics in an agile framework and how a team velocity chart can provide you with all the insights that you need for successful team management. It will all work for hand in hand and you cannot afford to overlook the benefits provided by these charts.

If you wish to proceed with CSM certification for having your certification so that you can handle problems like these in big projects, head straight to StarAgile’s scrum training courses. With the best courses curated for you, you will learn how to become a certified scrum master. With these credentials, you can give wings to your career and have better chances in the industry.

Share the blog