Look where you want to go
- Mary Iqbal
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read

When you’re kayaking in fast whitewater, the boat tends to go wherever you look. That's because when you look at something, your whole body tends to lean that way without you even realizing it. Whitewater kayaks are so responsive that this small shift in posture is enough to change your direction. Simply by looking at that rock, you can end up heading straight for it. But if you look downstream toward the open channel, that’s where you’ll go.
Metrics also help guide Scrum teams. Too much attention to the wrong metrics (especially from leadership) can cause the Scrum team to focus on the wrong things. Velocity or even throughput are helpful for planning purposes for the Scrum team, but if leadership puts too much focus on them, it can cause the team to drift into dangerous waters. But if we focus on customer outcomes, we’ll move toward what really matters: delivering value.
The Problem with Targeting Velocity
Velocity can be useful for forecasting, but it was never intended to measure success. I once worked with a leader who really wanted to support Scrum and encourage the teams to embrace it. With the best of intentions, she put into every team member’s review that they needed to increase their velocity by 25% by the end of the year.
What happened? Forecasts became less unreliable. The wrong kind of attention on the numbers caused the Scrum team to lose focus on what was important.
She was trying to help—but the unintended consequence was that the team’s ability to forecast, plan, and inspect reality was undermined.
Velocity as an Observation Tool
Velocity itself isn’t bad. In fact, it can spark valuable conversations:
A dip in velocity might reveal a blocker.
A sudden increase in velocity could indicate something is going well.
Highly variable velocity - velocity that is all over the place - could indicate that the team has too much work that is rolling from Sprint to Sprint.
Trends over time can open discussions about improvement opportunities. But velocity should be observed, not pursued. The moment it becomes a target, it loses its usefulness.
Focus on Outcomes
Just like in kayaking, Scrum Teams should look where they want to go. That means that when it comes to measuring the success of a Scrum team, we should be focusing on customer outcomes, not internally focused metrics like velocity or even throughput. Outcomes give teams a sense of purpose. They create alignment across the organization. And they ensure that Scrum’s empirical process—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—is directed toward delivering value rather than chasing arbitrary numbers.
Conclusion
If we keep our eyes fixed on velocity, we’ll drift into the rocks. But if we look downstream—toward the real value we’re trying to deliver—we’ll find ourselves moving in the right direction.
For further discussion on metrics, signup for Rebel Scrum's Professional Agile Leadership course or the Evidence-Based Management course.