Velocity is too often used as a stick to beat people with — "Team B is doing 15 more points that you"; "Last month, we were doing an extra 5 points every sprint

Velocity is too often used as a stick to beat people with — "Team B is doing 15 more points that you"; "Last month, we were doing an extra 5 points every sprint, but now we've stagnated — what happened?" The only worthwhile external measure of value is features that the team deliver (i.e. broadly counting improvements to non-functional requirements as features too). Velocity is meant to be constant (in an ideal world) to allow the Product Owner (i.e. someone _inside_ the team) a broad brush to provide estimates on when things may be ready — even used in this way, they depend on a stable team with a velocity that's not too volatile. They shouldn't be shared externally to try and show how productive the team are. For example, I've previously had management ask if our team can try a bit harder & deliver another 30 points per sprint. As points are meaningless outside of the team though, that's a false economy: I think they got the picture when I said our team could deliver another 1,000 points per sprint if they wanted us to.