Agile Pantry
Anti-pattern

Velocity as a Target

From Goodhart’s Law

Using story-point velocity to measure or compare team performance. Once velocity becomes a target, estimates inflate and the number stops meaning anything.

Why it happens

Velocity is an easy number to collect, so leaders reach for it to track productivity, set improvement targets or compare teams.

Why it backfires

Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. Story points are relative and specific to each team, so they can’t be compared. Under pressure, estimates inflate, people avoid helping others because it doesn’t “earn points”, quality corners get cut, and the number loses its only real use: helping the team forecast.

Warning signs

  • Velocity appears in management dashboards or reports.
  • Teams are compared or ranked by points.
  • Targets ask for velocity to rise quarter on quarter.
  • Items get re-estimated to hit a number.

If this sounds familiar

If your team…Then
Leaders need a view of deliveryOffer throughput, cycle time and outcome measures instead, and explain why points can’t do that job.
The team finds velocity useful for planningKeep it, but only inside the team.
Teams are being comparedStop. Compare outcomes and customer impact instead.

How to get out of it

  1. Explain Goodhart’s Law to the stakeholders who use velocity, with your own examples of inflation.
  2. Stop sharing velocity outside the team.
  3. Replace it in reports with flow and outcome measures.
  4. Consider dropping points altogether in favour of throughput-based forecasting.

Related forms

Points-per-person targets
An even more damaging form that turns estimation into individual performance review.
Utilisation targets
The same mistake applied to people’s time: keeping everyone 100% busy.

What it damages

Estimate inflation

You’ll notice A “3” becomes a “5”, and velocity rises while delivery doesn’t.

Fix Remove the target, and forecast from throughput.

Less collaboration

You’ll notice People avoid pairing, reviewing or helping, because it doesn’t count.

Fix Measure team outcomes, not individual output.

Quality shortcuts

You’ll notice Testing and refactoring get squeezed to “finish” more points.

Fix Hold to the Definition of Done, and track escaped defects.

Signs you’ve recovered

  • Velocity no longer appears in reports outside the team.
  • Estimates are stable over time.
  • Conversations with leaders focus on outcomes and forecasts.

Instead, try

Monte Carlo ForecastingFlow MetricsSprint GoalOKRs

What it costs

Setting up
A conversation with leadership, and replacement measures.
Ongoing
None.

Sources

  • Problems of Monetary Management: The U.K. Experience, Charles Goodhart (1975)
  • “Improving ratings”: audit in the British University system, Marilyn Strathern (1997)
  • Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn (2005)