Aging WIP
Also known as WIP age
Definition
Aging WIP shows the elapsed time since selected work entered progress and remains unfinished. It helps teams see risk in current work before a slow item becomes a completed-item statistic.
Aging WIP in practice
Aging WIP shows the elapsed time since selected work entered progress and remains unfinished. It helps teams see risk in current work before a slow item becomes a completed-item statistic.
A concrete example
An illustrative team sorts its active items by age and finds that a small migration has been open for 21 days while most changes finish within four. The team investigates the migration's dependency rather than starting another item.
How to use the signal
Compare this measure with cycle time, throughput, work in progress, and queue time. Define the start and finish events, inspect distributions instead of relying on one average, and record the policy behind any comparison. A useful measure should lead to a specific question about flow rather than a score for an individual.
Limitations
Age depends on the chosen start event and can be distorted by intentionally paused work. Read it with state history and the reason an item is still open.
How this relates to Weave
Weave's engineering intelligence can help teams inspect delivery activity and timing around aging wip. Use those signals to find patterns and test workflow improvements, while keeping the team's work system as the source of truth for product, operational, and dependency context.
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