Retrospective Velocity

In this article, Brian Tarbox and Heather Mardis try to answer the classical question: “how long is this going to take?” They discuss the notion of velocity in Scrum and how to use it to estimate future sprints. But not all projects use the Scrum framework and people rarely record past estimates. They suggest to use the data of the requirement tracking system, bug database, and source code control system to calibrate velocity in traditional projects. Their conclusion is that you don’t have to be doing Scrum to get the benefits of knowing your Velocity and tracking how it is changing.