The Work in progress graph displays the number of items in progress (maximum, minimum, and average) for the selected period, week by week.
You can evaluate how well your team is working together to accomplish the same goal. You can view this data by sprint or week, as you prefer.
Psst! Be careful not to confuse this graph with the one of the same name available in the Technical Axis since they do not use the same data (different sources for the two Axes).
Example of use
For the following graph, the period displayed corresponds to the last three months, and the display mode is by sprint. We can see that, on average, the team is working on four items at a time. Given the size of this team (number of team members), this is approximately one item per person. Of course, the maximum and the minimum number of items worked on in parallel can vary.
For example, we can see a significant variation in the maximum number of items worked on in parallel.
While other weeks show a more relatively stable number of items for one week, i.e. there is little difference between the maximum and the minimum number of items.
The goal here is to work on the right number of items simultaneously to ensure quality delivery and encourage collaboration while delivering value to the customer.
Psst! As with many other charts in the Process Axis, the key to success is stability. While variations are inevitable, there should not be significant deviations over time.
This may reflect that the team worked on more simple tasks in a given week while starting on some items that were considered more difficult another week. The Issue type time investment graph can help you learn more about the items worked during that period.
To learn more about the variation indicator and its calculation, check out this article!