In this article:
1. Introduction to the Aging Work in Progress (WIP) Chart
2. Additional Controls for This Chart
3. What Is This Chart Telling Us?
4. Aging WIP Chart: New Version
You can find more information about the Analytics module in the dedicated article. To learn why it is important to track Aging WIP, please take a look at this article on our blog.
Important: In Version 11.0, we introduced a new version of the Analytics module that affects some charts, including the Aging WIP Chart. The points below describe the old chart functionalities. To see how the new version differs, please check pt. 4.
1. Introduction to the Aging Work in Progress (WIP) Chart
The chart is used to track the age of your "in-progress" cards.
Generally, this chart is similar to the Cycle Time Scatterplot, but it visualizes only work items that are currently being worked on (i.e. cards that are still in progress). This chart helps you to immediately recognize tasks that are taking longer than expected with the help of the percentiles.
For teams that use and discuss their flow metrics, this can be extremely useful as the topic is usually brought up during stand-up meetings and regular KPI reviews.
- The horizontal "x" axis represents the stages of the selected workflow. At the top of each column, there is a WIP indicator that shows the number of "in-progress" tasks in every stage. The calendar icon indicates the base date for which the information is displayed.
- The "y" axis visualizes how long each task has spent in the section (cycle time) i.e. the number of days a task spends in progress.
- The dots scattered over the chart represent your tasks in the respective stages against the number of days.
Data Configuration
Use the left-side menu to configure your data. You have to select the workflow(s), duration (End Date, Start Date, or Created at), as well as other optional filters.
In addition to that, you have two more options:
- Ignore the cycle time configuration for the selected workflow(s) — if enabled, the system will disregard the cycle time settings for the selected workflow.
- Ignore the block time in the queue columns — if enabled, the system will not account for the time cards were blocked when in queue columns.
Important: To be able to compare current tasks' aging to historical items, you can use the 'Created at' or the 'Start date' operators from the left side menu when configuring your dataset for this chart.
Let's see how this chart works!
From the chart below, we may conclude that there is a 70% chance that the team can deliver a task within 2 days and an 85% chance that they can finish it in 7 days.
2. Additional Controls for This Chart
Dot Colors
Get a clearer picture with just a single glance by changing the color of the dots that represent work items. A specially designed filter gives you the ability to distinguish between the different types of assignments based on a wide range of card attributes (card color, owner, priority, size, etc.). A good use of this filter would be to set a different color for each team member. By doing so, you can spot who is having trouble with pulling their tasks through the workflow and give you hints on where you need to place more attention.
Done Percentiles
The done percentiles have a single purpose – to tell you how your current assignments are progressing compared to the historical data included in the Aging Work In Progress chart. You can add or remove any of the percentile lines by deselecting or selecting them with your cursor.
Note: if you only have an 'End Date'='Not Finished' filter enabled for the chart, this would exclude completed items from the data set, hence the Done Percentiles controls would not be available.
To be able to compare current tasks' aging to historical items, you can use any of the other date-related filters for example 'Created at' = this month or 'Start Date' = after 01.01.2020.
Pace Percentiles
The pace percentiles are here to help you measure the health of the current items that are in progress compared with past performance. They can give you an idea of how these tasks are currently progressing versus how cards have advanced through the in-progress stages of the selected workflow in the past.
The pace percentile lines are dynamic and will move up and down depending on your performance. To make the difference in pace more visible, you can use the warning colors filter. Each percentile category has a specific color.
Note: If you only have an 'End Date'='Not Finished' filter enabled for the chart, this would exclude completed items from the chart, hence the Pace Percentiles controls would not be available.
To be able to compare current tasks' aging to historical items, you can use any of the other date-related filters for example 'Created at' = this month or 'Start Date' = after 01.01.2020.
Stalled Alert
Make a configuration, so that the scattered dots will start blinking after the number of days that you have defined. This way you will intuitively pay attention to tasks that have spent more days in the workflow.
Please note that if the time spent in a workflow stage is greater than the filter's threshold, the item may not necessarily flash. Stalled alerts are displayed when the time spent in the current workflow stage exceeds the duration specified in the filter.
Aging Replay
Use the slider control to modify the displayed data with the dates you desire. The slider allows you to navigate back and forth within the pre-selected time frame without having to adjust the general filter every time. With the basis date, you can go back and see how your chart looked in the past. For example, you can replay the last month’s data and see how many items have progressed and aged.
Cursor
You can use the cursor options to display the cycle time/percentile of the current position of your mouse pointer.
Item Filter - use a variety of filters to display a smaller portion of data. You can choose to focus on the cards with various criteria like priority, owner, size, color, custom fields, etc.
Workflow Stages - You can include or exclude different stages of the workflow from the chart. This way, the information can be viewed from a different starting or ending point. For example, you can remove the requested section of your board, so that you can see how your cards were progressing directly from an activity stage.
Important:
If you remove a middle stage from the workflow stages of the chart, then you will have results as follows:
- the previous stage will keep the same value
- the stage after the removed one will be calculated, taking into account the time it took for the cards to enter it after leaving the previous stage. The chart would read that the time for a card to move from the previous column to the following column and not the card stayed in the previous column for the time that it spent in the removed column.
3. What Is This Chart Telling Us?
The pace percentiles are here to help you measure the health of the current items that are in progress compared to past performance. They can give you an idea of how these tasks are currently progressing versus how cards have advanced through the in-progress stages of the selected workflow in the past. Pace percentile lines will move up and down depending on your workflow performance.
Important: The higher a task is plotted in the chart, the longer it stays in progress.
If a task is above the 50th percentile, this means that it's already taking more time in your process than 50% of your tasks. We recommend inspecting this chart every day and if something is in the red area, pay attention to it, and make it flow faster.
We suggest, using the 85th percentile or the 95th percentile if you tend to be not that optimistic in your planning and prefer to be on the safe side.
Let's enable the 95th percentile. The brown area is a map of your historical work, i.e. at what point in time the work items were going out of the corresponding stages. This area is telling us: How old the items were historically when they used to leave the corresponding stages.
For example, our 95th percentile for the "In progress" stage is the 6th day. If our work items are inside this brown area this means that we are not slower compared to our historical data.
Note: Having work items in the red area might be a signal that our age cycle time might be growing over time. Always watch for cards in the red area.
If you enable the 85th percentile, you will notice that the time it takes for tasks to be completed becomes lower. For example, the 85th percentile of the "In progress" stage is the 2nd day. If your work items are in the yellow area, this is a good indicator. If they are above the yellow area, we would say that our 85th percentile is growing in terms of days. Ideally, we will check the corresponding tasks and find the root cause of the delay. This will help you spot problems and outliers in your process that might become bottlenecks soon.
The dots scattered across the chart represent all the tasks that have been in progress since the starting date of the query. Click on the dot to make it sticky or hover over each dot and a popup window appears.
Inside, you can see the Start Date of the assignment/s, current age, pace, and the respective card ID.
If you click the card ID, you will open a box with additional card details, such as title, priority, owner, etc. You will also be able to see how many days the assignment has spent in each stage of your workflow.
To dismiss it, just click anywhere on the chart.
Important:
The Aging WIP chart allows for cycle time recalculation for the completed cards based on working days.
For example, if a card was started on Friday and finished on Monday, the data for the cycle time would be 4 days by default (as it would take Saturday and Sunday into consideration) without the setting.
With working days enabled, the cycle time data would be 1 day. With the working days option enabled, the data for Pace Percentiles and Done Percentiles will be recalculated as well.
If you need precise cycle and log times for internal reporting, use the Advanced search capabilities with the different chart views and widgets.
4. Aging WIP Chart: New Version
Here is how the new Aging WIP chart differs from the old version:
Dataset Configuration
- The “Ignore Cycle Time Configuration” checkbox has been replaced with the new “Show full workflow structure” option available in the controls menu.
- The “Ignore Block Time in Queue Columns” checkbox has been replaced with the new “Exclude Block Time in Queue Columns” option available in the Cycle Time Filter dropdown in the controls menu.
Chart Controls
WIP Columns
Workflow Stages is now WIP Columns. By default, the system will select only the columns in your workflow that are included in the cycle time configuration. If you want to include queue columns, checkmark the “Show full workflow structure” option and select the columns you want to include in the chart.
Chart Visualization
In the old version, when a card was returned and moved through multiple columns, all its entries in a column were visualized as a single bar. This made it difficult to track the specific journey a card took through each column in your workflow.
With the latest update, you can now see the exact path a card has taken through the selected columns. This enhanced visibility allows you to follow a card’s movement more accurately.
If you see a "0" for the path in any column, this could mean one of two things:
- The card was never in that specific column.
- The time period selected is too large to capture its movement.
In cases where you suspect the latter, try selecting a smaller Time Unit from the control menu
The Y-axis now shows only the time spent in the selected WIP Columns, while time spent in other workflows is ignored.
The Done and Pace Percentiles are calculated based on the actual completed cards in your workflow (moved to Done or Archive). Those cards remain consistent regardless of the columns selected or deselected in the WIP Columns Filter.
Even if you select columns from the Done section of your workflow, this will not alter the underlying data set for completed cards. Therefore, the Pace Percentiles for each column should remain the same.