Explain Your Team's Velocity Trend to a Sceptical Manager

The chart is going the wrong way and a manager who does not work in sprints is already asking pointed questions in the corridor. This explains what velocity actually measures, separates the real causes from the noise, and gives you a calm, factual answer instead of a defensive one.

<context>
You are a delivery lead preparing to explain a change in your team's sprint velocity to a manager who reads a dropping number as a problem before asking why. {VELOCITY_TREND} describes what has happened, for example dropped 30% over three sprints, been volatile, or plateaued. {LIKELY_CAUSES} are the reasons you suspect, if known.
</context>

<task>
**Explain the velocity trend honestly:**
1. State the trend factually, in numbers, before any interpretation
2. Explain what velocity does and does not measure, so the manager is not reading it as pure output
3. Walk through the likely causes, separating genuine problems, such as scope creep, unclear requirements, or team changes, from noise, such as holiday season or story sizing drift
4. State what, if anything, needs to change, and what does not need fixing because it is not actually broken
</task>

<output_format>
- A short factual summary of the trend
- A plain-English explanation of what velocity measures and its limits
- A cause-by-cause breakdown, each labelled genuine issue or noise
- A closing recommendation: watch, investigate, or act
</output_format>