How do I measure team velocity and capacity with Team Velocity?

Team Velocity in Zenhub helps you understand how much work your team consistently delivers each sprint, giving you data-driven insights for sprint planning and capacity management. This measurement becomes your foundation for predicting what your team can realistically accomplish in upcoming sprints.

Finding your Team Velocity report

Navigate to the Reports section in your Zenhub workspace and select "Team Velocity" from the available report options. The default view shows "Past 12 months" of data, which you can adjust using the date range selector at the top of the report.

Use the filter bar to narrow your analysis:

• Repos: Select specific repositories when your team works across multiple codebases
• Sprints: Focus on particular sprint periods for targeted analysis
• Labels: Filter by specific labels to understand velocity for work categories like features, bugs, or technical debt
• Milestones: Include milestone-based time periods alongside or instead of sprints
• Assignees: View velocity data for specific team members or filter out certain contributors

Reading the velocity chart

The main visualization shows your team's velocity over time with several key elements:

Gray bars: Closed (completed) story points for each sprint, showing actual work delivered.

Light blue bars: Open story points that were planned but not completed, helping you see scope versus delivery patterns.

Blue line: Average velocity across the entire time period, providing your overall team capacity baseline.

Green line: Rolling velocity showing your recent 7-sprint average, which reflects your current team performance more accurately than the overall average.

The chart updates automatically as sprints complete and issues move through your Work Tracker pipelines.

Understanding the velocity metrics

Your Team Velocity report displays three key metric cards at the top:

Average velocity: Shows your team's mean story points completed over the selected time period (like "7 story points" in the past 12 months).

Current rolling velocity: Displays the average based on your last 7 sprints (like "6 story points"), providing a more recent performance indicator that reflects current team capacity.

Change in rolling velocity: Indicates whether your recent performance is trending up or down compared to previous periods (like "-6 story points" showing a decline).

Below the chart, scroll down to see detailed sprint and milestone information with individual issue statistics that show what contributed to each sprint's velocity.

Interpreting velocity patterns for planning

Use your velocity data to understand team capacity and make realistic sprint commitments:

Velocity consistency: Look for patterns in your sprint-to-sprint velocity. Consistent velocity indicates predictable team capacity, while high variation suggests you need to examine factors affecting team performance.

Trend analysis: The rolling velocity trend shows whether your team's capacity is increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable. Use the current rolling velocity (recent 7 sprints) rather than overall average for sprint planning.

Planned versus completed patterns: Compare the gray bars (completed) to light blue bars (planned but not completed). Consistently over-planning suggests your team needs to adjust sprint commitments, while consistently under-planning indicates potential for taking on additional work.

Seasonal patterns: Extended velocity tracking often reveals patterns related to holidays, company cycles, or external factors that help with longer-term capacity planning.

Using velocity data for sprint planning

Transform your velocity measurements into practical sprint planning decisions:

Capacity determination: Use your rolling velocity as the starting point for sprint planning. If your rolling velocity shows 6 story points per sprint, plan around that capacity rather than arbitrary targets or the higher overall average.

Buffer planning: Account for velocity variation in your sprint planning. If your team's velocity ranges from 4-8 story points, plan for the lower end and treat additional capacity as opportunity for stretch goals.

Trend-based adjustments: Adjust sprint planning based on velocity trends. Teams showing declining velocity (like the -6 change in the example) should plan conservatively while investigating causes.

Work composition analysis: Use the detailed sprint data at the bottom to understand how different types of work affect velocity, helping you plan sprints with appropriate work mix and complexity distribution.

Customizing your velocity tracking

Configure your Team Velocity report using the available options to match your team's workflow:

Report options configuration: Click "Report options" to access advanced settings:

• Set completed pipeline: Define which Work Tracker pipeline represents "completed" work. Issues moved to your selected pipeline and any pipelines to its right will count as completed in velocity calculations.

• Group columns by: Organize velocity data by Assignees or Labels to see individual contributor patterns or work category breakdowns within your overall team velocity.

• Shared estimates criteria: Choose how to handle story points for issues assigned to multiple people or labels:

  • Allocate shared estimates: Each assignee/label gets full story point value (5-point issue assigned to 2 people = 5 points each)
  • Split shared estimates evenly: Story points are divided among assignees/labels (5-point issue assigned to 2 people = 2.5 points each)

Date range customization: Adjust the time period using the date range selector for specific analysis needs or to focus on recent performance patterns after team changes.

Tracking team capacity changes

Monitor your team's evolving capacity using velocity data to identify improvements and potential issues:

Team composition effects: Track how team member additions, departures, or role changes affect velocity over time. New team members typically reduce short-term velocity while increasing long-term capacity as they onboard.

Process improvements: Use velocity trends to measure the impact of process changes, tooling improvements, or workflow optimizations. Sustained velocity increases often indicate successful process improvements.

Workload sustainability: Monitor velocity patterns for signs of unsustainable workload. Declining rolling velocity combined with high planned commitments may indicate team burnout or capacity constraints.

Individual contributor analysis: Use the "Group columns by Assignees" option to see velocity contributions from individual team members, helping identify workload distribution patterns without turning velocity into performance metrics.

Using velocity data for team improvement

Leverage Team Velocity data during retrospectives and capacity planning discussions:

Estimation accuracy: Compare planned versus completed story points across sprints to identify patterns in estimation accuracy. Consistent overcommitment or undercommitment suggests the need for estimation calibration.

Work category analysis: Group by Labels to understand how different types of work affect team throughput, helping you plan sprint composition and identify bottlenecks in specific work types.

Capacity conversation: Use objective velocity data to have realistic conversations with stakeholders about delivery timelines and capacity constraints, replacing subjective assessments with historical performance data.

Sharing velocity insights

Communicate team velocity information with stakeholders and team members:

Report sharing: Click the "Share" button at the top right of your Team Velocity report to generate shareable links for team members and stakeholders who have Zenhub access. Recipients need a Zenhub license to view the shared report link.

CSV export: Use the share menu to export detailed velocity data for analysis in spreadsheet applications or integration with other reporting tools. The CSV format includes all sprint data, story point breakdowns, and calculated velocity metrics.

Stakeholder communication: Use velocity data to set realistic expectations with project stakeholders about delivery timelines and capacity constraints. The visual chart and concrete numbers provide objective data for capacity discussions.

Team retrospectives: Incorporate velocity data into sprint retrospectives using the individual issue details at the bottom of the report to discuss specific examples and capacity trends.

FAQ

Q: Why does my team's velocity vary significantly from sprint to sprint?
A: Velocity variation is normal and can result from changing work complexity, team composition changes, external dependencies, estimation accuracy, or varying scope within sprints. Focus on rolling velocity trends rather than individual sprint variations for capacity planning.

Q: How many sprints of data do I need for reliable velocity measurements?
A: Most teams need 6-8 sprints of data for reliable velocity patterns to emerge. New teams or those with significant recent changes should focus on rolling velocity rather than overall averages until patterns stabilize.

Q: How do I handle story points for issues assigned to multiple team members?
A: Use the "Shared estimates criteria" options in Report options. Choose "Allocate shared estimates" if you want each assignee to get full story point credit, or "Split shared estimates evenly" if you want points divided among assignees. Your choice depends on whether you're measuring total impact or individual workload distribution.

Q: How do I account for different story point estimators on my team?
A: Velocity measurements work best when your entire team uses consistent estimation practices. Consider conducting estimation calibration sessions and using Planning Poker to improve estimation consistency across team members.

Q: Can I use velocity data to compare different teams?
A: Avoid direct velocity comparisons between teams, as story point estimates are relative to each team's context, complexity, and estimation practices. Instead, focus on each team's velocity trends and consistency within their own historical data.

Q: What should I do if my team's velocity is declining consistently?
A: Investigate potential causes including team capacity changes, increased work complexity, process bottlenecks, external dependencies, or estimation drift. Use retrospectives to identify specific factors and develop improvement plans based on the underlying causes.