On this page:
What is Work in Progress?
Work in Progress provides the percentage of issues in progress compared to all issues assigned to an interval.
Why does Work in Progress matter?
Understanding your team’s Work In Progress is important to ensure you’re maintaining, if not improving your team’s ability to complete planned work, and manage capacity for unplanned work.
This measure helps teams to identify patterns relating to:
work not getting completed as planned and being carried over from prior intervals.
over-committing to each interval, signalling that teams are perhaps not spending enough time when planning to break down issues.
work being added mid interval (see Stability to better understand patterns relating to interval scope change) and how this impacts a team’s ability to complete planned issues.
Umano has identified a direct correlation between high rates of Work In Progress and lower Completion Rates, as well as slower speed as measured by longer Lead Time and Cycle Times.
What does a 'good' Work in Progress look like?
Good practice indicates a low rate of Work in Progress is better.
This is reflective of teams that are highly focussed with strong planning discipline, high predictability, and strong momentum in the way they complete their work.
They are also effective in managing stakeholder expectations when new work is assigned, reprioritising their load to reflect their usual capacity rather than adding the new work on top of their existing work.
How does TeamX measure Work in Progress?
Work In Progress is the percentage of issues that have been moved from To Do/Open with work started but not yet completed at the end of the interval, relative to all issues assigned to the interval.
This includes issues that were planned for at the start of the interval, or unplanned issues added mid interval. I also includes planned issues that were removed mid-interval.
What drives your Work in Progress?
Your Work in Progress rate is being driven by:
Total number of issues assigned in the interval
Number of issues added mid-interval
Number of issues removed mid-interval
Number of title changes made mid-interval
Number of description changes made mid-interval
Number of acceptance criteria changes made mid-interval
Number of business days in the interval
Tips for improving your Work in Progress.
Make sure issues are well planned for. This includes descriptions, title, and having a clear definition of done. All this will help to increase the team's understanding of what’s required.
If needed, break issues down into smaller tasks. This encourages the completion of smaller batches of work, and limits larger pieces of work dragging on.
If your team takes on unplanned work mid interval due to changing priorities, be sure to address how you will manage items that are planned.
Work with stakeholders to help reset priorities. It’s important to be aligned on which issues the team will continue to work on and which might be moved back to the backlog for your next interval. This is a great opportunity to work together to reset your team’s focus.
Set guardrails for your team for how much work you aim to complete each interval, this helps to maintain low rates of work in progress.
If you see your measure of work in progress increase over-time, resist the temptation to take on new items of work and focus on completing the issues that are incomplete.