VL-12
Issue Count vs Story Point Velocity — Sizing Consistency
Velocity
Default severity: medium
PrioritizationEstimationOutputEffort
What it detects
Tracks the ratio of average story points per completed issue across sprints. If this ratio is inconsistent (high variance) or trending in one direction, it indicates that the team\'s story sizing is drifting — they are completing stories of increasingly different sizes, which makes SP-based velocity comparisons meaningless.
Detection formula
FOR each_sprint S: avg_sp_per_issue(S) = completed(story_points, S) / max(1, completed(issue_count, S)) sp_per_issue_series = \[avg_sp_per_issue(S) FOR S IN baseline_sprints\] cv = STDDEV(sp_per_issue_series) / AVG(sp_per_issue_series) IF cv > config.vl.sizing_consistency_cv // default: 0.40 THEN FLAG inconsistent_story_sizing IF linear_regression(sp_per_issue_series).slope > 0 THEN WARN stories_getting_larger (risk of over-commitment) IF slope \< 0 THEN WARN stories_getting_smaller (risk of cherry-picking) Report: avg SP per issue per sprint as bar chart; trend line overlaidExamples in practice
- A team shows tracks the ratio of average story points per completed issue across sprints while sizing consistency cv is set to 0.40.
- Example signal: Tracks the ratio of average story points per completed issue across sprints.
Suggested response
Plan to historical capacity—avoid repeated over or under-commitment and unstable velocity.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
Tracks the ratio of average story points per completed issue across sprints. If this ratio is inconsistent (high variance) or trending in one direction, it indicates that the team\'s story sizing is drifting — they are completing stories of increasingly different sizes, which makes SP-based velocity comparisons meaningless.
Why it matters
When "Issue Count vs Story Point Velocity — Sizing Consistency" keeps appearing, the team is signalling a repeatable process gap. Left unexamined, the pattern hides where work really stalls and makes improvement metrics harder to trust.
What you can achieve
Plan to historical capacity—avoid repeated over or under-commitment and unstable velocity.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Issue Count vs Story Point Velocity — Sizing Consistency" from firing again?
- What do the cited issues have in common — same root cause or same workaround?
- Who owns the two-week experiment and how will we verify on the next import?
Run this rule against your own tracker data with Flow Analyzer.