Work item age
Also known as Age of work in progress, WIP age
Definition
Work item age is the time that has passed since a selected start event for an item that is not yet complete. It makes unfinished work visible and helps teams find items at risk of exceeding a service expectation.
The clock for unfinished work
Age differs from cycle time because the item has not yet reached the finish boundary. It answers how long current work has been in the selected state or workflow. That makes it useful for deciding what to pull or unblock before a delay becomes a completed-item statistic.
A concrete example
An illustrative pull request opened Monday is still waiting for review on Thursday. Its review age is three elapsed days if those timestamps define the interval. A separate implementation age might begin earlier, so the team should name which clock it is using.
Act on old work
Sort by age, inspect blocking reasons, and look for specialist approvals or abandoned items. An old item may need help, cancellation, splitting, or a policy exception. Do not start new work simply because all active people appear busy.
Limitations
Age can be distorted by paused or intentionally parked items. It also depends on accurate state transitions. Preserve the reason for a pause and align the start event before comparing teams.
How this relates to Weave
Weave can help teams investigate active changes and review events around aging work. It cannot see every product or operational item, so use its signals with the system that owns the complete workflow and the team's definition of start.
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