“I Have A Problem! My Scrum Team Delivers Fewer Story Points Than The Other Two.”
Are you Serious? — episode 66
The ‘Are you Serious’ series tackles Scrum misconceptions. All its articles have this theme and can be read on their own.
Carl is a Product Owner. He works with three Scrum Teams. He’s concerned about the productivity of one of the teams because the Velocity is lower than the Velocity from other teams. This is why he decides to raise this with Sarah, the Scrum Master.
“I am worried about team Hawk. They consistently deliver fewer Story Points than team Falcon and team Eagle”.
“What is it that you find so worrying about it?”
“Well, the difference between this team and the other teams is huge. Hawk delivers 23 Story Points on average. Falcon and Eagle both deliver more than 60 Story Points consistently.”
“Why is this bad Carl?”
“What a strange question. You are the Scrum Master! You should advise me what to do about it! Isn’t it obvious that team Hawk is half as productive as team Falcon and Eagle?”
“To tell you the truth: no it is not obvious to me. Story Points aren’t the right source of information to draw this conclusion. Having said this, you worry. Have you shared your concern…
