Overview
The deferred work item metric is used for measuring the capability of the team by observing the number of work items
defered to the next iteration. Defered work item is a work item that has been assign to an iteration but cannot be
completed as plan. Initially, the deferred numbers may vary becuase the team do not know their own capability to
complete the work item. Then after couple iterations, it shouldl be close to zero throughout the life cycle. (similar
to Iteration Velocity metric)
Meausrement Method
Total number of planned work Items in iteration
Total number of deferred work items in iteration.
Measurement Analysis
A good way to monitor deferred work items over time is to plot a trend chart. The team should pay attention when the
trend remain stable or high overtime. This indicates that there are more tasks than the capacity of the team. You may
need to re-evaluate the iteration velocity and adjust it accordingly.
There may be the case that there is a high number of work items deferred to some iteration. You need to
do further analysis on what went wrong in the last iteration.
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