Team Velocity: More than the sum of it’s parts?

April 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Collaboration

With our move to our new company came a new way of working for our team. We used to be a tight knot team, all working the same long-term 3+ year enterprise project. Now we’re working on equally engaging projects, but they are shorter term. Our “team” has been split into smaller teams of 3, 2 and even 1 person per project. We’ve also been working on distributed teams with our other offices around the country as well. As such, our velocities are for individuals, small teams and disjointed teams. It looks like this will be the modus operandi for the foreseeable future as well: Mix-n-match teams to put the right people on the right jobs for our clients. So, the question that has been occurring to me lately is, how do I get reliable velocities to adequately estimate bids for future work with our mix-n-match teams?

One idea I’m toying with is trying to gauge the velocity of individual team members using Rally. For example, I can calculate Dave’s velocity as 12 points per sprint, Mike does 10 points per sprint, and Jeff does 11 points per sprint. If we have a project that requires Dave, Mike and Jeff together, are their velocities additive? Can I assume that this team would have a combined velocity of 33 points per sprint? This begs the question, is the whole greater than the sum of it’s parts?

In the next few months, we’re going to test this theory. First we’ll get a good handle on individual velocities. Then, we’ll start tracking the mix-n-matched teams to see if individual velocities are additive or something else (better or worse). This approach is going to require that we establish a common basis for estimating. We’ll have to come up with a baseline for our story points that everyone can agree upon. I’m not entirely convinced this is possible, but I think it is worth investigating. If you’ve dealt with a situation like before, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to tackle a complex issue like this one.