Dalia’s Substack: Beyond Speed: The missing component in most velocity debates

Engineering leaders often face questions about their team's velocity, usually focusing on speed: how fast can the team ship code or deliver features? While speed is important, focusing solely on it misses a critical component necessary for true progress: direction.

Velocity is not just about how fast your team moves but also about where they are headed. Imagine navigating a journey: speed matters, but if you’re going fast in the wrong direction, you won’t reach your intended destination. Similarly, teams must align speed with clear, purposeful direction.

When velocity conversations focus only on output, leaders might overlook whether the team is blocked by execution issues or simply moving fast but off course. Execution problems often include flaky tests, inefficient pipelines, unclear work assignments, and excessive context switching, all of which slow delivery.

Most developers are hardworking, but friction from technical debt, poorly defined tasks, or over-engineered solutions can hinder progress. Leaders should work with teams to identify these impediments and create iterative plans or engineering roadmaps to systematically remove blockers and improve execution.

Sometimes, drastic changes are necessary, and teams need strong leadership support to make tough decisions. However, if a team is shipping quality code regularly yet velocity issues persist, the problem often lies in direction, not execution. This points to challenges in product strategy and value alignment.

A key distinction is between empowered product teams and feature teams. Empowered teams receive problems and desired outcomes rather than fixed feature lists, enabling them to design solutions that are valuable, usable, feasible, and viable, ensuring alignment with customer needs and business constraints.

Shipping fewer features with clear direction delivers more value than high throughput with little customer impact. Excessive low-value features can degrade user experience, increase complexity, reduce product quality, and ultimately slow down the team, undermining velocity and business goals.

Leaders must engage in honest conversations about velocity, helping teams identify execution blockers and clarify product direction. Focusing only on speed risks prioritizing output over meaningful outcomes, which is counterproductive. True velocity combines great execution with sound strategy to maximize value.