WIP Limit Pressure by Project(2.4.7)

When a team has too many things in flight at the same time, each individual item moves more slowly — context-switching, waiting for dependencies, and competing for attention all add up. This is called WIP overload, and it is one of the most common and least visible causes of backlog acceleration.

How the occupancy is counted

The chart is built from status transitions. An issue joins a day's count on the day it transitions into a status whose category is in progress, and leaves it on the day of its next status transition — whatever that next status is, including another in-progress one. A day's number counts distinct issues, so an issue that changed status twice on the same day still counts once. The average and the peak are taken over the days that carried at least one issue in progress; days with none are not in the series and are not averaged in.

Issues with no exit yet

An issue whose most recent recorded status change put it into an in-progress status has no exit transition, so it is counted every day from that transition through today. Nothing in the event history says it left, so that is the reading — but it does mean a long-untouched issue keeps contributing. The count of such issues is measured per project and reaches Deep Analysis, though the panel itself does not draw it yet. Where that count is close to the peak, the flat line is work that has been open a long time rather than work arriving; where it is small, the shape is real day-to-day movement.

What you can conclude

• A peak above the limit you set marks the busiest single day in the project's recorded history, not a reading for today — that day can be months back. First and last dates and the active-day count say when.
• A project whose average sits close to its peak across many active days is holding a roughly constant population; the still-open count tells you whether that population is moving or parked.
• Projects below the limit on both average and peak had fewer items open at once across their whole history.

How this chart works

Grouped bar chart showing average and peak concurrent in-progress issues per project. A configurable WIP limit reference line (default: 8) is overlaid. Each project carries a pressure badge: within limit, approaching, or exceeded. A project the view could not measure is badged as not scored, never as within limit.

The WIP limit can be adjusted using the filter — set it to match your team's agreed limit for the most accurate pressure reading. The date filter selects which projects are drawn, keeping those whose in-progress span overlaps the period; the average, peak and still-open counts shown for a project are computed over its whole history, not only the part inside the period.