You need two kinds of metrics in your business: success and velocity. Success metrics tell you whether you hit your goals, while velocity metrics tell you how likely you are to hit future goals.
That's true, although the definition of velocity changes over time. When you're small, velocity might be individual productivity, and as you grow it becomes team productivity and eventually organizational productivity. Since productivity always goes down as the company grows, there is a lot of room for velocity to increase!
I would argue against that. What you gain you loose through team growth / changes and whatnot. What I'v seen so far is that a plateau will be hit and escaping it will need a fundamental re-structure.
That can happen but it's not inevitable. There are plenty of companies that maintain high velocity with extremely large teams. Smaller teams also struggle with velocity as the scope of infrastructure expands, which is when growing the team increases velocity. It depends on your team composition and whether you anticipate challenges or just react to them.
velocity can build up to a point, cannot grow for ever ;)
That's true, although the definition of velocity changes over time. When you're small, velocity might be individual productivity, and as you grow it becomes team productivity and eventually organizational productivity. Since productivity always goes down as the company grows, there is a lot of room for velocity to increase!
I would argue against that. What you gain you loose through team growth / changes and whatnot. What I'v seen so far is that a plateau will be hit and escaping it will need a fundamental re-structure.
That can happen but it's not inevitable. There are plenty of companies that maintain high velocity with extremely large teams. Smaller teams also struggle with velocity as the scope of infrastructure expands, which is when growing the team increases velocity. It depends on your team composition and whether you anticipate challenges or just react to them.