(A modern corporate fable about rewarding A while hoping for B)
Let me tell you about Sophie.
She joined bright-eyed, caffeinated, and carrying just enough imposter syndrome to fit right in.
Day one, her manager pointed at the wall-sized Jira dashboard glowing with KPI green.
“See that number? That’s velocity. Make it go up.”
Clear goal. No ambiguity.
Sprint 1
She closed a few tickets.
Velocity ticked up. People clapped.
The Slack bot posted confetti.
A colleague created a “#velocity-wins” channel.
It felt good.
Addictive, even.
Sprint 2
Sophie refined her craft.
Her masterpiece:
- “Fix typo” — 5 pts
- “Document ‘fix typo’” — 2 pts
- “Think about fixing typo” — 1 pt
Velocity spiked.
The dashboard glowed a confident green.
Leadership was thrilled.
Sprint 3
Sophie published The Art of Story Hygiene.
It taught teams to slice work into units completable before lunch.
There was a brief philosophical appendix: “Naming Is Doing.”
Someone asked about customer outcomes.
Sophie opened a ticket: “Investigate outcomes — 8 pts.”
It spawned: “Document outcomes — 5 pts.”
Then: “Discuss documentation — 3 pts.”
Customers remained unchanged.
Velocity did not.
Sprint 4
She built a Slack bot that chimed “+5 Velocity!” when a ticket closed.
Fireworks were added.
Then a leaderboard.
Then Velocity Awards.
The office printer jammed on certificates.
Product value: trending negatively.
Morale: trending delightfully.
Sprint 6
A new engineer asked, “Shouldn’t we focus on outcomes?”
Silence.
Sophie smiled the way you smile at a toddler holding a knife.
“Outcomes aren’t measurable every sprint,” she said. “Velocity is.”
The bot chimed.
He did not ask again.
Sprint 10
Automation arrived.
A script split stories by keyword.
A macro re-opened and re-closed tickets for… reliability.
Velocity reached orbit.
The CTO praised their “process maturity.”
Marketing announced features the product didn’t have.
Sophie opened a ticket: “Add missing features (research) — 13 pts.”
Progress recorded.
Sprint 52
Velocity doubled, then tripled.
Cupcakes decorated with burndown charts were served.
A director called them “a model of consistency.”
Customers called support.
Sophie was promoted to teach Velocity Discipline across the org.
She launched a new bot: VelociRaptor.
It roared when tickets closed.
People loved the roar.
Then, one quiet afternoon, the product was sunset.
No one noticed.
The board was still green.
Epilogue
Sophie kept a screenshot of the final dashboard.
She titled it “Proof of Success.”
The company filed it under “Post-Mortem Exhibit A.”
Months later, somewhere else, a manager pointed to a fresh dashboard and told a new hire:
“See that number? Make it go up.”
Moral
If your people don’t share the vision, they’ll follow the metric.
If you reward activity while hoping for impact, you’ll get activity – industrial-grade.
As Steven Kerr warned in his classic, “On the Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for B,” reward A while hoping for B, and you’ll get more A and less B.
So stop rewarding points.
Point at purpose instead.
FAQ
Q: Is “The Velocity Cult” based on a true story?
A: Only every sprint, everywhere.
Q: What’s the real lesson here?
A: People don’t optimize for what you want – they optimize for what you measure. Align metrics with meaning, or watch your teams build dashboards to nowhere.
Q: How can we avoid becoming Sophie’s company?
A: Stop rewarding A while hoping for B. Define outcomes. Share purpose. And remember: agility without vision is just efficiency in the wrong direction.
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