What is
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Completed Work
Completed Work measures how much planned work a team completes during a given interval.
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Use Cases
GOAL: Help teams improve and/or stabilise how much work they can complete, and set guardrails around:
How much total work a team generally can complete to better manage everyone’s expectations
How much capacity a team needs to realistically ‘plan for the unplanned' and build greater agility into their workflow by being able to absorb ‘unplanned’ work
Make unplanned work visible, so teams can choose the type of work they can complete rather than react to what they’re working on
AS Mo, I want to be able to understand my total completion rate to know my team’s capacity and plan accordingly.
As Mo, I want to know, of the the work my team completes, how much is planned or unplanned (potential hidden work, reactive, customer, bugs etc) so that I can again, plan accordingly or change the process where it’s holding us back.
As Mo, I want to understand what type of unplanned work our team completes (tickets [sized or unsized], bugs, rework) so that I can improve our planning and review workflow.
Chart
Complete (Total line + Rolling) or (Cumulative - planned & unplanned)
Incomplete (Cumulative - planned and unplanned)
Callouts
As is
Surfacing
Complete
Item Title_Type_Assignee > Estimate > Date completed > Planned_Unplanned
Incomplete
Item Title_Type_Assignee > Estimate > Time in Status> > Planned_Unplanned
Why Completed Work matters
Understanding how much planned work is completed allows a team to plan more accurately and replicate their approach.
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Incomplete work that is carried over to future sprints creates drag, affecting a team’s speed and progress.
What ‘good’ Completed Work looks like
Teams will often set a goal for how much of their work they aim to complete, for example 80% of planned items. This acknowledges unplanned items can arise during the sprint and they need to retain capacity to respond and adapt accordingly.
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Included | Not included |
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All work items in Jira that are assigned to a sprint including Stories, Tasks, Sub- Tasks, Bugs and Spikes at the start of the sprint | All sub-tasks of tickets assigned to the sprint |
Tips for improving
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Completed Work
| Tip |
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Rank the priority of all tickets assigned to the sprint during sprint planning so it’s clear which items can be reprioritised if new and unplanned items need to be prioritised and assigned |
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| Tip |
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Reprioritise your sprint load rather than accepting new items into the sprint and not removing or reprioritising existing items |
Resources
optimism bias
Little Law
Clubhouse Research