Planned vs. earned velocity

About this report

At the beginning of a project, it is a worthwhile exercise to make some prediction of how fast the team will deliver. And that predicted speed is likely to change over the course of the project, as the team size (typically) grows during its ramp-up period, and then decreases in size as the project nears completion. Using a model of planned velocity and knowing the total number of story points in the backlog, project managers can formulate a model for answering those ultimate questions—when do we think we will be done and how much is it going to cost?

Of course, any answers generated by such a model before we start measuring actual progress are likely to be wildly inaccurate. But as we begin work and measure our actual velocity at the end of every sprint, we can see how the team is performing in comparison with our initial predictions. If the team has had an actual velocity of 25 points for the last five sprints, it is pretty likely to keep going at that pace (assuming we do not add or remove any team members)—even if we initially thought that the team would be earning 30 points per sprint.

Prerequisites

1. PI must exist in the system and be tied to a program. 
2. Sprints must be created and tied to a PI. 
3. Stories, with point values, must be created and tied to a sprint.

How are report values calculated? 

• Past 5 sprints velocity: The average velocity of the team, calculated using the five past sprints that were completed prior to the sprint selected in the Sprint dropdown.

• Planned velocity for sprint: The sum of effort points from stories planned for the selected sprint.

How to interpret this report

Velocity is the number of story effort points accepted each sprint. This number and its trend over time allow project management (Scrum Masters and product managers) to know if the project is on track and to monitor the project plan, actual work, and work completed values. It describes your team’s performance at any given period and gives a good indicator of what you can accomplish going forward.

You can view the number of story effort points on the Y-axis and sprints on the X-axis.

• Story Points Planned: The sum of originally estimated effort points from all the stories in a sprint.
• Story Points Earned: The sum of accepted story points from all the stories in a sprint.