Question

An agile project team has been using story points and velocity for sprint planning. After six sprints, a new team member joins who is much more experienced than the rest of the team and significantly increases productivity. The team's velocity jumps from an average of 32 points per sprint to 48 points. The product owner sees this increase and immediately adds more items to the upcoming sprint based on the new velocity. However, two weeks later, the experienced team member accepts a position at another company. What should the team have done differently?

Accepted Answer

Recognized velocity as a team-specific metric that naturally fluctuates with team composition changes and used a rolling average for planning

Answer

Re-calibrated all story point estimates when the new team member joined to account for the increased team capability

Answer

Converted from story points to ideal hours to get more accurate estimates that account for individual productivity differences

Answer

Maintained two separate velocity tracks - one with and one without the experienced team member - for more accurate forecasting

PMP Practice Question: Process — Agile, Medium

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