AZ-400 Question 22
Single answerYou are a DevOps engineer for a software development team using Azure Boards for project planning and tracking. The team wants to report on velocity as part of iteration planning, ensuring it accurately reflects how many story points are completed each sprint. Which approach should you implement to achieve consistent and reliable velocity metrics?
- A
Use the built-in Velocity chart in Azure Boards analytics, including only user stories in the 'Done' state that have assigned story points and were completed within the sprint window.
- B
Create a work item query that sums up the hours logged on completed tasks during the sprint, then use that total to represent velocity in your planning discussions.
- C
Enable Analytics and configure a custom query that includes all user stories regardless of their state, then manually remove unrelated items from the chart before each sprint review.
- D
Export work items to a CSV file at the end of each sprint and manually calculate velocity in an external spreadsheet to ensure accuracy over time.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Using Azure Boards' built-in analytics for velocity ensures that only completed user stories with assigned story points are counted toward the sprint total. This aligns with Microsoft DevOps best practices for measuring team progress. Refer to the official Azure Boards documentation on configuring Velocity charts and Analytics (https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/devops/report/analytics/velocity) to set up precise metrics and queries for effective sprint planning.
- A. Correct.
Correct: The built-in Velocity chart in Azure Boards can be configured to include stories in the 'Done' state that have story points assigned. By restricting the query to items actually completed within the sprint, you get a reliable measure of how much work was finished, which aligns with best practices for calculating velocity.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect: Hours logged on tasks is a different metric. Velocity is typically measured in story points completed. Confusing task-hour totals with story-point velocity can lead to misleading metrics for sprint planning.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect: Including all user stories regardless of their state in the analytics will pollute the velocity measure. Manually removing items each time is error-prone and not a sustainable approach to maintain consistent reporting.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect: Exporting data to CSV and using spreadsheets adds unnecessary manual steps. This approach is prone to human error and lacks the real-time updates and automation provided by Azure Boards and its analytics features.