CST Velocity, Cycle Time & Flow Metrics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Scrum Team notices their velocity has been steadily declining for three sprints. What is the MOST appropriate first step?
- Increase the sprint length to allow more work
- Inspect the causes during the Sprint Retrospective (Correct answer)
- Add more developers to the team immediately
- Reduce the Definition of Done to complete more items
Correct answer: Inspect the causes during the Sprint Retrospective
The Retrospective is the proper Scrum event to inspect and adapt on process issues like declining velocity.
Question 2: Cycle time in a Scrum context is BEST defined as:
- The total duration of a Sprint from planning to review
- The time from when work on an item begins until it is done (Correct answer)
- The average number of story points completed per sprint
- The time between consecutive sprint planning sessions
Correct answer: The time from when work on an item begins until it is done
Cycle time measures the elapsed time from when active work begins on an item to when it reaches 'Done'.
Question 3: Which flow metric indicates the number of work items actively being worked on at any given time?
- Throughput
- Work in Progress (WIP) (Correct answer)
- Cycle Time
- Flow Efficiency
Correct answer: Work in Progress (WIP)
Work in Progress (WIP) counts items currently in an active state between started and done.
Question 4: Little's Law states that average cycle time equals average WIP divided by average throughput. If a team has 12 items in progress and completes 4 items per sprint, what is the average cycle time?
- 3 sprints (Correct answer)
- 48 sprints
- 0.33 sprints
- 16 sprints
Correct answer: 3 sprints
Little's Law: Cycle Time = WIP / Throughput = 12 / 4 = 3 sprints.
Question 5: A team's velocity varies significantly sprint to sprint (e.g., 20, 45, 15, 50 points). What does this MOST likely indicate?
- The team is consistently improving their skills
- There is high variability in story sizing or work predictability (Correct answer)
- The Product Backlog is well-refined and prioritized
- The team should use a higher sprint velocity for planning
Correct answer: There is high variability in story sizing or work predictability
High velocity variance typically signals inconsistent story sizing, unplanned work, or unpredictable capacity.
Question 6: Flow efficiency is calculated as:
- Throughput divided by team capacity
- Active work time divided by total cycle time, expressed as a percentage (Correct answer)
- The number of items completed divided by items started
- Sprint velocity divided by team size
Correct answer: Active work time divided by total cycle time, expressed as a percentage
Flow efficiency = (Active/Touch Time ÷ Total Cycle Time) × 100, revealing how much time an item spends being actively worked vs. waiting.
Question 7: Why should a Scrum Team avoid using velocity as a performance metric to compare teams?
- Velocity is only meaningful for hardware development teams
- Story point scales differ between teams, making cross-team comparison invalid (Correct answer)
- Velocity measurements require specialized tooling unavailable to most teams
- Comparing velocities encourages teams to work faster, which is beneficial
Correct answer: Story point scales differ between teams, making cross-team comparison invalid
Each team calibrates story points relative to their own context, so velocity numbers are not comparable across different teams.
CST Velocity, Cycle Time & Flow Metrics 2
A Scrum Team notices their velocity has been steadily declining for three sprints.
What is the MOST appropriate first step?