Inflow Source Attribution

Knowing that a spike happened is the first step. Knowing why it happened is what allows you to respond correctly. A spike caused by a burst of new issue creation requires a different response than one caused by a wave of issues being reopened from Done.

This visual breaks each week's backlog inflow down by source — so you can see at a glance whether a spike is a demand problem, a quality problem, or a planning problem.

What you can conclude

• A spike dominated by newly created issues signals unexpected demand — scope creep, an external trigger, or a planning failure.
• A spike dominated by issues returning from active states indicates WIP instability — work that started is being pushed back to the queue.
• A spike dominated by reopened terminal issues is a quality signal — completed work that wasn't actually done.

How this chart works

Stacked bar chart showing weekly backlog inflow broken into three sources: newly created issues, issues returned from active states, and issues reopened from terminal states.