I experienced similar at a previous company. Everything was a 1, 2, or 3. If it was a 5, the "scrum master" got a frowny-face. "Guys, can we break this down more??" Then a 15 minute discussion would ensue. That was literally the person's only contribution.
(If you suggested an 8, they'd look at you crazy and it would get back logged.)
The entire engineering org was measured on velocity. Every 2 weeks, at end of sprint, there would be a huge Slack posting with various stats for something like 6 or 7 teams. "85% completion! 5% are still in review. 10% of tasks were not even started!!"
Some managers would game the system. If a task wasn't done, they'd just mark it complete and open a ticket to finish it up next sprint (typically "integration testing for feature X" or "QA feature X".) One guy must've dragged his original 3 point ticket out for 4 sprints doing this. The "velocity" was meaningless.
(If you suggested an 8, they'd look at you crazy and it would get back logged.)
The entire engineering org was measured on velocity. Every 2 weeks, at end of sprint, there would be a huge Slack posting with various stats for something like 6 or 7 teams. "85% completion! 5% are still in review. 10% of tasks were not even started!!"
Some managers would game the system. If a task wasn't done, they'd just mark it complete and open a ticket to finish it up next sprint (typically "integration testing for feature X" or "QA feature X".) One guy must've dragged his original 3 point ticket out for 4 sprints doing this. The "velocity" was meaningless.