“Team effectiveness scorecard” dashboard template
This dashboard displays a set of key scorecards to help provide focus when trying to improve your team’s effectiveness.
Controls on the dashboard
Use the following controls to configure the dashboard:
Date range | “Calendar” control to filter charts to display data relating to work items completed during the selected date range. |
|---|---|
Date bucket | “Dropdown” control to group data by week, month, quarter, or year. |
Project and Project lead | “Dropdown” controls to specify the teams that this dashboard should focus on. If you reset these controls, the charts will look at work items across all teams. |
Work types to consider | “Dropdown” control to select specific work types that you want this dashboard to consider. If you reset this control, the charts will look at work items of all types. |
Work item labels to ignore | “Dropdown” control to select specific work item labels that you want this dashboard to ignore. If you reset this control, the charts will look at all work items with any label. |
You can filter all charts on the dashboard by project, project lead, work types to consider, and work item labels to ignore.
Mapping categories of work
Mapping work items into categories of work helps teams keep track of and prioritize the effort spent in each category. At Atlassian, we bucket the work (in other words, Jira work items) into four categories: Run the business, Change the business, Developer productivity, and Team management.
To map the work categories:
Use the “Text input” controls to specify the names of the categories of work
Use the “Dropdown” controls to specify the Jira work item labels that map to each category of work
Note the following:
If a work item maps to multiple labels, the charts will map the work item to the first label match in the list.
The first category of work (default is “Run the business”) in this mapping is also used as the target goal in some charts, as we believe teams should spend less than 10% of their time working on this category.
Mapping statuses of work in review
Specify which work item statuses indicate “In review”. This mapping ensures that the “Time spent in review” and “Time that work items spent in ‘In review’ status” charts properly display the proportion of time spent on work in review.
Charts on the dashboard
Quick overview
The quick overview gives a holistic view of your team over the last four weeks, helping you see where your strengths and weaknesses are. Red values indicate areas that need attention, while blue values indicate areas that are in a good state.
Median cycle time (single value chart)
The average time that work items were in progress. Keeping the cycle time below seven days, which is half the length of a typical sprint) can be useful to ensure work can be completed within the sprint timeframe.
Time spent in review
The percentage of time during the last four weeks that work items were in review. The review process is a common bottleneck in team workflows. Consider efficiency improvements if the time spent is more than 50%.
Overloaded assignees (single value chart)
The percentage of assignees with three or more work items in progress at the same time. If assignees have too many streams of work, they have less time to work on each one and may spend a lot of their time context-switching.
Work items that need attention
The percentage of work items that transitioned to a previous status category or changed assignees. Keep this percentage low to ensure work is always moving forward in a timely manner.
Current “Run the business”
“Run the business” focuses on the necessary work to improve and maintain existing features. Such work includes bug fixes and performance improvements. The target is <10% of time to be spent on “Run the business” work to ensure teams are able to create space to deliver new features to customers. If too much time is spent on these tasks, it could indicate that teams are stuck and unable to deliver on their roadmaps with their current resourcing.
Categorized work items
The percentage of work items that have work item labels applied to them. Teams should make sure to label/categorize their work items so your organization can properly track where time is being spent.
Median cycle time (bar chart)
Work item cycle time looks at the total time a work item spends “In progress”, which is an effective way to assess how your work flows.
Reducing cycle time is valuable because it means work is spending less time “In progress”, which helps teams create flow, which is at the core of creating a sense of progress in work.
Time that work items spent in “In review” status
Time spent “In review” is a major source of lost time during development. If the share of total time “In progress” is high, it's a signal there are meaningful improvement opportunities.
Reducing time spent “In review” means shorter feedback loops, which helps teams learn, and iterate faster.
Time spent by work categories
Aggregating time spent on work by key categories helps teams see if that distribution matches expectations, which can help them plan more efficiently.
Based on the categories used, teams can identify root causes that lead them to spend more or less time than desired in specific areas.
Throughput per work category
A count of completed work items per key category, which helps teams understand the amount of demand for each type of work and their ability to deliver it.
If teams know how much of each category of work they're doing, they can see the type of impact they're having and adjust if needed.
Max work in progress per person
The largest number of “In progress” work items assigned to a single person on a team. A high number indicates a teammate is at risk of burnout or is a bottleneck.
Keeping max WIP low helps teams ensure they’re achieving delivery goals and avoiding the risks of key-person dependencies.
Overloaded assignees (bar chart)
The percentage of people on the team with 3 or more “In progress” work items. This can mean too much context switching or delays in completing work.
Reducing the percentage of overloaded assignees, ideally to zero, focuses a team on completing or pausing work before starting anything new.
Bounced back work items
Listing of work items that have transitioned to a previous status category, and how many times. These indicate a changing scope or priority to “In progress” work.
While not all backward transitions are problematic, teams should watch for patterns or high frequencies that may indicate ambiguous goals or success criteria.
Handed-over work items
Listing of work items that have been reassigned, and how many times, which for “In progress” work can mean skill or capacity gaps within a team.
While not all reassignments are a concern, teams should watch for patterns or high frequencies that may indicate overloaded teammates.
Stuck work items
Listing of work items that have been in the same status for seven or more days and their total days in that status, which can reveal blocked or abandoned work.
Working to reduce or eliminate stuck work items can help a team see through commitments and transparently communicate what’s not being worked on.
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