Sprint Planning and Execution

Correct Answer: The past velocity (25, 28, 23) should be considered for the next sprint, not just the new user story.

The velocity of a Scrum team is the sum of the story points completed in the last three sprints divided by the number of sprints, not taking into account the new user stories added. This is used to predict the amount of work the team can get done in future sprints based on their past performance. The answer 'The past velocity (25, 28, 23) should be considered for the next sprint, not just the new user story.' is correct because it correctly focuses on the velocity measurement as an average of past performance. The other options are incorrect as they misunderstand the concept of velocity by incorporating the new user story in their calculations. The velocity of the team does not change with the addition of a new user story.

Correct Answer: The velocity should be calculated as the average of the last three sprints, not including the fourth sprint with the outlier.

In Scrum, the velocity of a team is typically calculated as the rolling average of the story points completed in the last few Sprints, commonly the last three. This helps to iron out any anomalies and provides a more realistic forecast. Here, the fourth sprint is regarded as an outlier due to extraordinary circumstances of team member illness. Thus, it should not be included in the calculation of the velocity for upcoming sprint predictions. So, the velocity should be calculated as the average of the last three sprints, not including the fourth sprint with the outlier. The other options suggest either only using the last sprint, taking an overall average, or using the highest number of story points, all of which won't give an accurate or reliable prediction.

Correct Answer: The velocity should not include the bug fixing tasks as these are unplanned work and do not reflect the team's capacity for new functionality.

In Scrum, velocity is a measure of how much work a team can tackle during a single sprint and is calculated by summing the story points of all fully completed User Stories. The answer 'The velocity should not include the bug fixing tasks as these are unplanned work and do not reflect the team's capacity for new functionality' is the most accurate. As per the Scrum Guide, velocity should only consider 'planned' work, which consists of implementing new features—unplanned tasks such as bug fixes do not contribute to this metric. Including these unplanned tasks in the calculation will give an inflated and inaccurate measure of the team's capacity for new work. The other answers propose alternative ways of calculating velocity, but they all involve including bug fixes in the calculation, which is incorrect as explained.