Comment by troydavis

Before implementation (and probably before choosing who does what), have the engineering team(s) estimate effort required for each granular work item in their upcoming release/sprint/month/whatever. Afterwards, you’ll have a measurement of velocity. Pivotal does this with Tracker so they’ve documented it: https://www.pivotaltracker.com/help/articles/planning_with_v..., https://www.pivotaltracker.com/blog/healthier-approach-estim...

Note that, as they say, “Velocity is a planning tool, not a goal or a competition. Quality is a much healthier and more useful goal.“ However much effort you spend caring about velocity, spend many times as much caring about quality - code/implementation choices, UX, resulting impact to the product/business, etc.