[valuearb]

I feel like the use of metrics is often just a crutch to avoid real management/leadership decisions. Sprints are meaningless overhead unless they are coupled to important deliveries. Often they aren't.

In my real world experience software doesn't get delivered within sprints, it gets delivered when it's ready. And decisions about what to deliver aren't made by the sprint team.

Anyone can pad story points enough to look like a sprint super-hero. The key focus should be what are you building, are you building it the right way, and what can we do to deliver it faster/better. Sometimes the right answer is stop holding meetings, and just get out of the way and let the team focus on the problem without interruption for a while.