A redditor asked the following question:

Question#

Average team size?

I’m the PM for a Developer Portal with approximately 14 developers and 1 QA, where we average 120 story points per 2 week sprint. We also have a scrum master, designer, myself, and an engineering lead. Overall team size is 19.

My questions:

  1. Is that team size normal or abnormal given the velocity (120) we have per 2 week sprint?
  2. What is the average team size in scrum?
  3. Does it make sense for 1 PM to be part of that large a team with that high a velocity? Should multiple PMs be on the product given our velocity?

My suggestion#

Who cares about velocity?

Judging by your questions, I get the impression that you are using words from Scrum, but your organisation and team are not agile. Don’t get me wrong, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Agile doesn’t fit every problem. Scrum used for things that are difficult but predictable can make things take longer to get done. If you want answers to what class of problem you are facing, you can look at Cynefin framework.

If you really want become agile, instead of thinking about velocity, think about what your product vision is and what your goals are. Then break down the product goals into parts potentially to be finished in one sprint, take the most important one as a sprint goal, refine it, split into smaller chunks and start working on it. Change your plan as you learn new things. Every day plan how to met the sprint goal during daily meeting. Verify your assumptioms after each sprint, gather feedback from users and stakeholders at the end of the iteration and improve your development process. And most importantly, don’t focus on velocity. Measure outcome and impact.