One of the metrics that a Scrum Master need to look out for is the "Velocity" - where the metric should be calculated in terms of both story points as well as number of stories.
Why is that so? Isn't tracking velocity at story points not sufficient?
Let us take the below scenario:
Team A has the below velocity: Story points = 70 and # Stories = 9
If they want to set the velocity for the upcoming sprint as 70 points and yet deliver it with a number of shorter stories (eg: 20 stories), is that fine?
Although this appears to be devoid of risks, the team should keep in mind, what is known as context switching.
What is Context Switching:
It is the time lost (i.e) productivity loss when we switch over from Task 1 to Task 2 and back to Task 1. It is estimated to be 20%. So in order to resume Task 1, due to the switch over, there is a time loss to get back to its context.
There have been many studies in this area, and the out come strongly points to the fact that context switching increases wastage. Computer scientist 'George Weinburg' gathered data around this and published the below details.
As we can see, the more multitasking is involved, greater the context switching and the loss %. As a Scrum Master, it is therefore necessary to consider velocity at both # of Story Points and at # of Stories level.
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