Blocking Work Items
This metric tracks the number of work items that are currently blocked.
Main Description

Purpose

This metric is used to identify the trend of work items that are blocking the team from making progress. It can help you to identify road blocks and focus on removing them so that the team can move forward.

This metric is useful when there are multiple teams working together. A high level of collaboration is needed due to interdependencies among the various tasks that teams are working on.

Definition

Count: the total number of open work items with a status of blocked in the iteration. 

Analysis

A good way to monitor Blocking Work Items is to use a line chart. Observe the growth of blocking work items over time.

  • Expected trend - The number of blocking work items should approach zero as the iteration nears its end. This indicates the team is making progress and is positioned well to successfully complete the iteration.
  • Upward slope - When the number of blocking work items remains high, velocity is reduced and can impact the project schedule. This trend indicates that the team may not be working to identify potential project risks. They may also be doing a poor job of managing issues to closure. Watch for a  high or increasing number of blocking work items close to the end of an iteration. This may indicate that the iteration end date is in danger. The team should review each blocking work item on the report to determine what is causing the blockage. It is also important to understand how long each has been blocked. This information can help you plan needed corrective action. When there are multiple teams working together collaboratively or on high-dependency tasks, it is a good idea to create a dependency diagram to try to avoid the road blocking in the critical path, or try to remove the blocking as soon as possible.

In the following example, which shows open blocking work items, the team reached a peak of 5 blocking work items in the iteration. The number gets smaller as the iteration nears its end, but there are still 3 remaining open work items that are blocked.

Blocking Work Items Report

Frequency and reporting

The team reviews Blocking Work Items throughout the iteration to understand their progress at removing road blocks. This metric is also reviewed at the end of each iteration to help identify trends throughout the release.

Collection and reporting tools 

Use IBM® Rational® Team Concert® to track Blocking Work Items. An out of the box report plots all open work items with a severity of  "Blocker" over time.