Arrival rate
Also known as Work arrival rate, Demand arrival rate
Definition
Arrival rate is the number of work items entering a defined workflow during a stated interval. It describes incoming demand, not the amount of work a team finishes.
Demand entering the system
Arrival rate measures how many items become ready or started in a period. The boundary matters: a team might count tickets created, items accepted into a ready queue, or changes that begin implementation. Those are different rates and should not be compared casually.
A concrete example
An illustrative team accepts 24 ready items during a two-week period. Its arrival rate is 12 items per week. If the team completes only 9 items per week, unfinished work will tend to grow unless the difference reflects a temporary mix of larger items or a deliberate capacity choice.
Read it with flow
Arrival rate becomes useful beside throughput, work in progress, and cycle time. A spike can signal a planning event, an incident, or an intake policy change. It does not prove that demand is unreasonable or that the team is underperforming.
Limitations
Item counts hide size and complexity. Split work can inflate the rate, while bundled work can suppress it. Label item classes and inspect the underlying work before changing staffing or WIP policy.
How this relates to Weave
Weave's engineering intelligence can help teams compare incoming change activity with delivery outcomes and inspect the pull requests behind a shift. Use that context to discuss demand and capacity together, while keeping the team's work system as the source of truth for non-code requests.
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