Velocity is an extremely simple, powerful method that uses points for accurately measuring the rate at which agile teams consistently deliver business value. It helps predict how much work a team can successfully complete within a time-boxed period. The result is that velocity allows teams to make realistic commitments and plan more efficiently. 


Planbox calculates your velocity by looking at the average from your past ten (10) iterations. The easy to read velocity gauge shows:

  • Total amount of points planned for the iteration
  • Total number of items for the iteration
  • Number of items that do not have point estimates
  • A visual indicator that tells if current planning is above/below velocity


Enabling Points & Velocity

To enable points / velocity, follow the steps which are detailed here.


Velocity Chart

The Velocity Chart shows the amount of value delivered for each iteration, enabling you to predict the amount of work that the team can complete in future iterations.. It is useful during your iteration planning meetings, to help you decide how much work you can feasibly commit to.

The Velocity Chart which you access through the "Reports" section (left navigation menu) includes the following data:

  • Completed / Committed points (per iteration)
  • Best / Worst 3 iterations (all time)
  • Average and Rolling velocity (the number of iterations to average can be configured in Initiative Settings)


How-to Estimate Points

As a team, you need to "score" each item relative to others so that you have an estimate of how difficult an item is to complete. This approach is powerful because you may not have enough information to estimate the time to complete an item, but you can immediately begin to compare the sizes of items to each other to determine a relative size?


To properly score an item:

  • Meet and decide on points as a team
  • Take into account product / technology expertise of various team members
  • Make sure specifications are as clear as possible so that the team has all the information they need to score the item
  • Reach consensus
  • From iteration to iteration, spend some time validating that your estimates are consistent across time

Note: When estimating points, it does not matter if your estimates are correct or incorrect as long as you are consistent.