Purpose

Improper Dependencies shows dependencies between tasks in the backlog.

How metric helps

Improper Dependencies helps to prevent cases when planned tasks are blocked by other tasks that are not included in this iteration. For example, if a Story depends on another Story scheduled for a later release, this case will be reflected as an improper dependency which requires a re-planning or re-sequencing. Target state is an empty chart, this means no dependency violations are detected. In case it is not empty - there are wrong dependencies which require attention and re-scheduling.

How metric works

Chart overview

Chart shows improper dependencies in form of table, where:

The leftmost column in the grid (Issue A) shows work items with broken dependencies - those should be fixed.
Next column (Link Type) shows a type of dependency between two items (according to Link Type).
The rightmost column (Issue B) shows work items an issue A depends on.

The number below the table shows a total effort of 'blocked' work in the project.

1 There might be cases when an issue in the column B is marked as "External". This means a dependency to an issue which is out of the scope of a project being viewed (and its imported data set). For example, such issue might be out of a project or selected filter, or even in another instance of JIRA.

2 If an item in "Issue B" is done, appropriate pair of issues will be hidden from the list even if a dependency is violated.

3 In case there is an "External" issue in the column B, this dependency will be displayed even in case the external issue has the "Done" status.

In case there are no improper dependencies, this chart will show a message:

Make sure you have set proper "Link Types" for dependencies in the PERF Project Configuration → Data sources → Jira → Scope management tab – Dependencies. By default, dependencies are configured as follows::

A is blocked by B
A depends on B

Data Source

Data for the metric can be collected from a task tracking system (Jira, TFS).