Yes. That's why, if you have to work with and/or manage a scrum team, making velocity not the focus of the sprint is step 1 for a sane process. We count points

Yes. That's why, if you have to work with and/or manage a scrum team, making velocity not the focus of the sprint is step 1 for a sane process. We count points, but it's not a contract. We try to reach the points, but it's not a contract. In my parent comment: _First of all, you have to remove velocity as a goal for your team. It's easy to game, and it de-incentivizes finding a _predictable_ velocity, which is the goal of that tool._