Standard : Percentage of Unplanned Work
Description
Percentage of Unplanned Work measures the share of team capacity consumed by unplanned work (incidents, urgent requests) compared to planned commitments. It helps ensure that roadmap work is not consistently displaced by emergencies.
How to Use
What to Measure
- Total effort spent on unplanned work in a sprint/quarter.
- Total team capacity or throughput in the same period.
Unplanned Work (%) = (Unplanned Effort ÷ Total Effort) × 100
Example: 40 of 200 story points spent on unplanned work → 20%.
Instrumentation Tips
- Use a work item type or tag for unplanned work.
- Separate true unplanned incidents from expedited roadmap items.
- Track trends over multiple sprints for stability.
Why It Matters
- Predictability: High unplanned work reduces delivery reliability.
- Team morale: Prevents constant firefighting and context-switching.
- Capacity planning: Helps size buffers for operational load.
Best Practices
- Allocate capacity buffer for expected unplanned work (e.g. 15%).
- Invest in root cause analysis to reduce repeat issues.
- Use automation to lower operational load.
Common Pitfalls
- Not tagging unplanned work consistently.
- Counting BAU maintenance as unplanned work.
- Overreacting to a single bad sprint rather than tracking trends.
Signals of Success
- Decline in unplanned work percentage over time.
- More consistent sprint/quarter delivery commitments met.
- Reduced incident volume as systemic fixes take effect.
- [[Incident Frequency]]
- [[Cycle Time]]
- [[MRR Stability]]