Are all people driven by this velocity you talk about? By the opportunity to have a BMW in the right spot in the parking lot? Some are, but others aren't. If not, how does that affect the way you manage a project? Will focusing so much on velocity promote incentive or unintentionally kill it? I think it depends very much on the team. There is no formula and no way around tuning management practices to the individuals involved in the work. That is what makes good management hard work.

*applause*. I couldn't agree more. I get intensely irritated when I see people being rewarded for writing unclean code at high velocity, being promoted to a new job, while I'm left to clean up their mess. If I can find the motivation (noone is offering me a BMW;-), I'll discuss intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators and other management issues at length in a future installment of this series.