How is your team measuring success? Are your metrics driving value—or just numbers?
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Agile introduced velocity as a simple tool: a way for teams to estimate how much work they can deliver in a sprint, supporting better planning and realistic forecasting. Yet, over time, velocity has been repurposed—and sometimes misused—as a performance metric, leading to unintended consequences for teams and organizations.
How is your team measuring success? Are your metrics driving value—or just numbers?
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
hello Stelian ROMAN Velocity is useful for planning, but once people start using it to judge team performance, it usually changes behaviors in the wrong way.
In my case, the metrics depend a lot on what the organization is pursuing. Not all initiatives are measured the same way, but we try to make sure there are clear expectations around what success looks like and why those metrics matter in each case.
The metrics that have helped my teams the most are the ones that help us understand where work is getting stuck, what is slowing delivery down, or whether what we’re building is actually helping.
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1 reply by Stelian ROMAN
May 18, 2026 6:21 PM
Stelian ROMAN
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Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa, thank you for the feedback. I believe that velocity is misused in most Agile implementations. "Velocity is killing Agility" is a frequent theme. I see no benefit in using it outside the team. Like the burndown chart, invented to keep a manager quiet, velocity can help the team to improve their planning. The other challenge is how we measure velocity. Story points are a relative measure and can be very easily gamed. It is no surprise that the person credited with inventing them apologised.
Coming from a project delivery and planning background, I see a similar issue with many project metrics. The number may look good on a dashboard, but it does not always mean the project is healthier.
A useful metric should help the team make better decisions. If velocity, progress percentage, or any other metric helps us understand capacity, identify blockers, forecast risk, or adjust priorities, it creates value.
But if the metric is mainly used to compare teams, create pressure, or paint a positive picture upward, people will naturally start managing the number rather than the work.
So I think the question is not only “what are we measuring?” but also “what behavior is this metric encouraging?”
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1 reply by Stelian ROMAN
May 18, 2026 6:25 PM
Stelian ROMAN
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Aung Sint, thank you. Why we measure is more important than how we measure. The 'cobra effect' is as dangerous in project management as it was in real life: "According to the story, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, and the cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population." If 'velocity' becomes a metric for all projects, forcing other teams to learn how to game the reports.
Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
May 14, 2026 5:06 PM
Replying to Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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hello Stelian ROMAN Velocity is useful for planning, but once people start using it to judge team performance, it usually changes behaviors in the wrong way.
In my case, the metrics depend a lot on what the organization is pursuing. Not all initiatives are measured the same way, but we try to make sure there are clear expectations around what success looks like and why those metrics matter in each case.
The metrics that have helped my teams the most are the ones that help us understand where work is getting stuck, what is slowing delivery down, or whether what we’re building is actually helping.
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa, thank you for the feedback. I believe that velocity is misused in most Agile implementations. "Velocity is killing Agility" is a frequent theme. I see no benefit in using it outside the team. Like the burndown chart, invented to keep a manager quiet, velocity can help the team to improve their planning. The other challenge is how we measure velocity. Story points are a relative measure and can be very easily gamed. It is no surprise that the person credited with inventing them apologised. Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
May 17, 2026 4:41 AM
Replying to Aung Sint
...
Coming from a project delivery and planning background, I see a similar issue with many project metrics. The number may look good on a dashboard, but it does not always mean the project is healthier.
A useful metric should help the team make better decisions. If velocity, progress percentage, or any other metric helps us understand capacity, identify blockers, forecast risk, or adjust priorities, it creates value.
But if the metric is mainly used to compare teams, create pressure, or paint a positive picture upward, people will naturally start managing the number rather than the work.
So I think the question is not only “what are we measuring?” but also “what behavior is this metric encouraging?”
Aung Sint, thank you. Why we measure is more important than how we measure. The 'cobra effect' is as dangerous in project management as it was in real life: "According to the story, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, and the cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population." If 'velocity' becomes a metric for all projects, forcing other teams to learn how to game the reports. Saving Changes...
Ming YeungAdjunct Professor| Various academic institutesToronto, Ontario, Canada
Dan, I have seen velocity evolve from a simple planning tool into a misunderstood performance metric, and the shift almost always creates more harm than value. When teams are judged on velocity, explicitly or implicitly, the behaviour changes quickly. Estimates creep upward, work is sliced unnaturally, and teams start optimising for the number rather than the outcome. The irony is that velocity becomes less reliable at the exact moment leadership starts paying the most attention to it. Our team eventually moved away from using velocity as a measure of success and reframed it as what it was always meant to be: a forecasting aid. Success, for us, is measured through a combination of flow‑based and outcome‑based indicators. We look at cycle time, predictability, escaped defects, and customer impact. These metrics tell a richer story about how effectively we’re delivering value—not just how many points we completed. One of the biggest lessons we learned is that metrics shape behaviour. If you reward speed, you get speed at the expense of quality. If you reward transparency, you get honesty. If you reward outcomes, teams focus on solving real problems rather than gaming numbers. Today, our conversations centre on learning and improvement rather than hitting arbitrary targets. When a metric moves in the wrong direction, it’s a signal to explore, not a reason to assign blame. That shift has made our delivery healthier, our planning more accurate, and our culture far more resilient. Saving Changes...
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