Part 1: Speed, Velocity, Sprint Goal, and Team
“How was your Sprint Planning?” Lee asked Maria, who had just entered the cafeteria.
“It was a good routine activity; we first calculated our capacity, then the team picked the ticket based on its past performance,” Maria replied.
“What makes you think it is a routine activity?” Lee asked curiously.
“We ended up doing the same thing every two weeks, and we became so proficient in it that it became a routine task; they even don’t need me there,” Maria replied.
Lee took a sip of coffee and thought for a while, then asked, “What do you mean by the past performance?”
Maria responded immediately, “It’s a team velocity.”
“And how do you calculate the team’s velocity?” Lee asked another question.
Now Maria is a bit puzzled and replied, “it’s a number of story points the team completed in a sprint.”
Lee didn’t respond immediately and thought for a while, then asked, “And what is the team speed?”
Maria became completely confused and was not able to speak. After a few seconds, she asked, “What do you mean by that? Isn’t it the same?”
Lee thought for a moment, then started speaking, “Ok let’s put this aside for a moment; let me ask you one question. Suppose there is a fire in one building in the city, and one fire truck is driving 50 miles per hour towards that building, and the second one is driving at 100 miles per hour, but we don’t know in which direction. Which one do you depend on?”
“Obviously, the first one,” Maria replied.
“And what is the rationale for this?” Lee asked.
“Because I don’t know in which direction the second fire truck is going, it may be going in exactly the opposite direction,” Maria responded.
“Exactly, like driving x number of miles without any direction? Now let’s come to our desk, I want to show you something,” Lee said, and then they walked together towards Lee’s desk. Lee started searching for something on his computer.
“I know it may not be directly related, but one idea came to my mind, let me share it with you,” he spoke while typing.
“Take a look at chapter 9 of the famous Physic book written by Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, now available online. Let me read what he wrote,” he stopped for a moment then started reading from the computer screen.
“Ordinarily we think of speed and velocity as being the same, and in ordinary language they are the same. But in physics we have taken advantage of the fact that there are two words and have chosen to use them to distinguish two ideas. We carefully distinguish velocity, which has both magnitude and direction, from speed, which we choose to mean the magnitude of the velocity, but which does not include the direction.” [1]
Maria looked perplexed and collected her thoughts, then said, “Well, I never studied physics in my life, and how is this related to our work?”
“Good question; it depends on what do you call velocity. Actually, I have another idea for you to connect the dots,” Lee spoke very slowly while thinking, “Ok tell me the answer of this; what is Sprint Backlog?”
Maria was still perplexed but responded mechanically, “It is a set of user stories team picked during the Spring Planning.”
“And what else?” Lee asked
“What do you mean by what else? This is Sprint Backlog,” Maria said confidently.
“Hmm, let’s open the Scrum guide and see what is written there,” Lee said and while typing on the keyboard, “here it is from the latest Scrum guide 2020”
“The Sprint Backlog is composed of the Sprint Goal (why), the set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint (what), as well as an actionable plan for delivering the Increment (how),” [2] Lee read and then kept quiet.
Maria focused on the computer screen and read it a few times in her mind, then responded, “I think I understand what I am missing when responding to your question, but how is this related to our initial conversation?”
“Again very good question; remember when we discussed the example of the fire truck, you picked the one who drives towards the building, although it was slower. We did it because we knew the direction. When we read the Feynman book, he also said the velocity comes with the direction” Lee stopped for a moment then started, “so if the team only focuses on the velocity without any direction, it is similar to driving a fire truck without any goal in mind. You started the conversation by saying that it became a routine activity, and I have an intuition that team is not creating a sprint goal, which means that they are going without any direction. Sprint Goal gives you direction, and I would say loosely then it will become a velocity; otherwise, it is just a speed.”
Maria listened carefully during the whole time and spoke after a thought, “So it means, without Sprint goal, it is not even a velocity?”
Lee smiled and replied, “In a pure physics sense, yes, it is just a speed, not a velocity.” He stopped for a moment, then picked up his iPad and searching something in it. “Let me show you one more thing, it is a very famous book The Wisdom of Teams by Jon Katzenbach, see what he wrote about the team in chapter 3” and handed over the iPad to Maria
Maria noticed something is highlighted on the iPad; she started reading, “A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” [3]
Kishore, who was listening to all this conversation from the next cubical, joined them with one book in his hand and said. “Hello friends, sorry to interrupt you, but let me tell you one thing. I have an interest in complexity theory, and one of my friends recommended this book to me. To my surprise, it also has a section on the team, and I came across this interesting thing from this book”.
He opened the book and started reading, “A team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or larger social systems (for example, business unit or the corporation), and who manage their relationships across organizational boundaries” [4][5]
“Wait a minute,” Maria said, “We started our conversation with a velocity, and you wanted me to focus on direction, which is Sprint Goal in the case of Scrum, then you connect it with the Common goal of a team. I was following you until then and got your point that it is no more a team without a common goal. Now you added another factor of interdependency.”
Kishore smiled and said, “well, if you need more, I can further go on.”
“I am not surprised, knowing your personality of going in-depth” Lee smiled back.
“I was following the references provided in the book and came across this one,” He handed a printout to them. “Now go to page 3 and take a look at the definition of What is a Team.”
Lee and Maria started reading together, “A team can be defined as (a) two or more individuals who (b) socially interact (face to face or, increasingly, virtually); © possess one or more common goals; (d) are brought together to perform organizationally relevant tasks; (e) exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goals, and outcomes; (f) have different roles and responsibilities; and (g) are together embedded in an encompassing organizational system, with boundaries and linkages to the broader system context and task environment.” [6]
“It is a quite lengthy paper, 48 pages in total, discuss lots of interesting concepts like team effectiveness, learning and lot more. I am still reading it; you can take this copy; I will also email you the link where you can download the electronic version of it,” Kishore said.
Maria kept quiet for a few seconds, thinking deeply, then asked, “well, I understand the common goal part to become a team, and without a goal, it is just a group of people working together, but why does it need interdependency? “
“That’s a good one,” Lee replied, “can you imagine a soccer team with only strikers? How effective would it be? The team is more than the sum of individual and it can only be achieved by interdependency, not individual work.”
Maria thought for a moment, then smiled, “it makes sense now. Thank you for explaining; I will keep this in mind when working with my teams and will surely be back with a lot of questions for both of you.”
“Anytime,” Lee said, “You are most welcome,” Kishore also said at the same time.
They all smiled and started walking towards the conference room, where the next town hall would begin in 5 minutes.
Reference
1. https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_09.html
2. https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
3. Thw Wisdom of Teams by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
4. The Flow System by John R. Turner, Nigel Thurlow, and Brain Riera
5. What Makes Team Work: Group Effectiveness Research from the Shop Floor to the Executive Suite by Susan G. Cohen and Diane E. Bailey
6. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams by Steve W.J. Kozlowski and Daniel R. Ilgen
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x
