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Planview Customer Success Center

Perform Aging Work Analysis

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Introduction

Performing aging work analysis is an activity that should be conducted on a daily basis to identify any work that may have become outdated. It is crucial for the Engineering team to focus their efforts on the most up-to-date products and customer requirements. To maintain a rapid flow of work and timely feedback, it is essential to keep the overall age of the backlog as recent as possible.

Key Actions

Discover more about the essential actions and responsibilities that each persona should take when performing this activity.

Scrum Masters and Teams Management, Leaders, and Product Managers Product and Engineering Management

During Daily Standup 

  • Analyze artifacts that have surpassed or are approaching the current average Flow Time. Discuss and identify any actions that can be taken to expedite the completion of these tasks.

Prior to Sprint Planning (or equivalent planning meeting) 

  • Sort aging artifacts in descending order of duration.
    • Examine all artifacts with a duration exceeding 30 days.
    • Based on the monthly average Flow Velocity, retain only the amount of work that can be completed within the designated planning period in your Flow Load.
    • Transition features that are no longer required to the "cancelled" state. Move lower priority items to the backlog, removing them from the Flow Load.

At the End of the Planning Period

  • The ideal scenario is to have no items older than 30 days, and the best-case scenario is to have no aging items at all, indicating that all work has been completed and nothing is carrying over to the next planning period.
  • The number of aged items must not exceed the Flow Velocity of the previous period; otherwise, no additional work can be accepted.

On a Daily Basis

  • Refrain from pushing work that surpasses the Flow Velocity of the previous period, as it cannot be picked up downstream.
  • Assist teams in prioritizing both the aging work that needs to be completed and the new work and priority changes that arise.
    • Agile embraces change, but change often comes at a cost. These tradeoffs can now be quantified and reviewed to support prioritization decisions and enhance flow.

Prior to your Monthly or Quarterly Planning Event

  • Sort aging artifacts in descending order of duration. 
  • Examine all artifacts with a duration exceeding 30 days.
  • Based on the monthly average Flow Velocity, retain only the amount of work that can be completed within the designated planning period in your Flow Load.
  • Transition features that are no longer required to the "cancelled" state. Move lower priority items to the backlog, removing them from the Flow Load.

 

Example

Below, you will find an example of aging work analysis.

Steps

 Step 1

  • Choose the Feature Filter on the Flow Metrics tab.
  • Note the average Flow Time (e.g., 124.3 days), average Flow Velocity (e.g., 6 features), and Flow Load (e.g., 69 features) for your chosen time period.
          clipboard_ed2db9f23599ddea0c48563429954bedd.png

Step 2

  • Open the Flow Item Analyzer to determine how many features are currently near or exceeding the average Flow Time.
  • In the filter, select "Feature", "Active" and "Waiting" (as these items are what represent what is in Flow Load).
  • In the "Age Days Open" filter, in the "From" field, enter the average (or desired) Flow Time (e.g., 125 days). 
  • Apply the filter. 

Alternatively, you can use (1) the 85th Percentile Flow Time displayed on the Flow Time graph or (2) your desired Flow Time (not currently displayed in Viz) depending on if you desire to improve your predictability or decrease your 85th Percentile Flow Time. 

                                                      clipboard_e60fa6ce72e5a3ee4ecfe8e586c69f3e1.png
Analysis
  • About 78% (54 artifacts) of features currently in progress are over our average Flow Time noted above as 124 days old. ​
  • From Step 1, we saw that we have 69 Features currently in progress, at a rate of delivering 6 Features per month. This indicates that we have over 11 months of work in progress.
  • At this rate of delivery, assuming this work that is in progress will be completed, will continue to significantly age beyond the 124 days unless action is taken.
  • In this example, we see most of the stories with the highest age are in the “Product Definition” state (400 – 600 days old); there are also features in “Accepted” and “Release Buffer” that are over 600 days old.  
          clipboard_e61cda91e881f1ee3c912c226e516aeb3.png
Actions
  • Review the particular state with the highest age of stories (e.g., Product Definition, Accepted, Release Buffer). 
  • Examine the aged items individually to determine why work has not been completed and discuss if any support can be provided to expedite them or if any improvements (experiments) need to be formed to prevent the aging in the future. 
    • Tip: Clicking on the artifact link will take you directly to your native tool. 

 

Example Improvements/Experiments:

For stages ahead of development, such as Product Definition, it’s important to limit the "demand"—the number of requirements (Flow Items) written—to the "capacity," or the rate at which the product can deliver (Flow Velocity). Implement a pull-based system where new work is only started as priority work is completed. While this may seem counterintuitive, it often improves efficiency by increasing focus, reducing delivery time (Flow Time), and boosting throughput (Flow Velocity), enabling the team to deliver more with the same resources. It also improves predictability.

Creating too many requirements leads to "overproduction," wasting time and money on items that won’t be delivered soon. Instead, focus on finishing priority work. The principle "Stop starting and start finishing" is a useful reminder. Finding the right balance in how far ahead and how many requirements should be created depends on the complexity and risk of the work.

The Bottleneck Finder can pinpoint where work is currently or historically piling up, providing insight to baseline and measure whether changes improve flow.

Work commonly piles up in the Product Definition and Release phases, contributing to longer time-to-market—an issue many organizations face. While this is normalized in software development, we intuitively avoid delays in daily life. For example, at the store, we pick the shortest line to minimize waiting. Similarly, in a traffic jam, adding more cars to the highway only worsens congestion instead of speeding things up.

In summary, minimize waiting by reducing work queuing in any workflow state. Limiting demand and focusing on flow can significantly reduce delays, leading to faster, more predictable delivery.

Other Common Actions:

  • Dependency Management: During planning, identify known dependencies and align priorities across teams to prevent competing efforts. This ensures lower-priority work doesn’t block or replace higher-priority tasks.

Do you have examples of actions you've taken to reduce aging and improve flow? We would love to hear! Share your examples in the Viz Community! 

 

Summary

  • Conduct a daily review of your aging work and identify work that is close to or surpassing your current average Flow Time (or your desired Flow Time).
  • Examine the aging work items to determine if any steps can be taken to complete them.
  • By following this practice, you can maintain and decrease your Flow Time.