If you put a productivity metric in place, teams and individuals will optimise to increase the score of the metric. That’s what you want in general, but it is c

If you put a productivity metric in place, teams and individuals will optimise to increase the score of the metric. That’s what you want in general, but it is completely incompatible with planning poker. Why? The same people are responsible for the estimate as the delivery. The obvious maximum solution for a team is to continually inflate all estimates to demonstrate improved velocity. At the individual level, it is to always take the most over-inflated story in order to demonstrate maximum individual contribution. You get perverse outcomes with all metric based productivity measures (for example in retail sales having friends buy large volumes and return to another store). You can prevent this kind of thing to a degree through various sticks, but with “planning poker” it is the antithesis of the desired goals. Measure in a different way.