LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
Quality needs observable conditions. If the Definition of Done requires testing, completed code remains unfinished work until those tests complete with the necessary result. In risk management, investigation may expose risk without removing it; turn the discovery into a decision and an owned response. The issues practice supports assessment of concerns and requests, including effects on project limits. Agility does not remove the need to justify commitments. Governance should support timely decisions without requiring central approval for every detail within an already defined mandate.
Guided application
Interpret metrics according to their definitions. Throughput counts completed items over a period; WIP counts started items not yet finished; cycle time measures time between defined start and finish boundaries. Work item age helps observe how long an open item has already consumed. If WIP doubles while output remains stable, investigate accumulation; do not conclude that every item takes exactly twice as long. In a burn-up, growing scope can move the target away despite continuous delivery. Keep dashboards coherent across levels. Use retrospectives and readiness assessment to choose owned experiments with effect measures, avoiding scores without context.
Sixteen items awaiting review remain in progress if the finish definition includes review and validation.
Common pitfalls
Done without quality; investigation as mitigation; velocity as benefit; dashboards with incompatible definitions.
Related topics: Startup, initiation, and coordination · Reviews, stage boundaries, and closure
A useful metric explains work and improves a decision.
Reference: The Kanban Guide · Version 2; inspected syllabus 2.0 (May 2025); revision 2.1 comparison pending