Christopher Justice · Project Management
Why Your Sprint Velocity Metric Is Lying to You
Your velocity is up. Story points completed last sprint exceeded the previous sprint. The trend is positive. Everyone's happy.
# Why Your Sprint Velocity Metric Is Lying to You
Your velocity is up. Story points completed last sprint exceeded the previous sprint. The trend is positive. Everyone's happy.
Except velocity is lying to you.
Velocity measures output — story points completed. When AI can generate unlimited output, measuring output tells you nothing about progress, quality, or sustainability.
You might be shipping code nobody understands. You might be building a system that can't be maintained. You might be creating technical debt faster than you're creating value.
The velocity chart won't show any of that.
Velocity emerged from reasonable premises:
Premise 1: Work is predictable. Similar tasks take similar time. Story points abstract away specifics to reveal patterns.
Related articles
- Agile Was Never Meant for This
- Coordination Overhead Is Killing Your AI Projects
- Heavyweight PM Is Technical Debt
- Your Process Is Optimized for 2015
- The Standup That Could Have Been an Async Update