Ageing risk highlights or how to catch issues early

Most delivery issues seem obvious in hindsight.

After the fact, it is easy to point at the moment when things went wrong, whether it was a late dependency, a missed review, or a piece of work that was “almost done”.

The action taken or not taken at the time is always easy to justify - business pressure, higher priority elsewhere or someone accepting the risk, etc.

The uncomfortable part is that in almost every case, the warning signs were visible long before the risk became an issue.

But for one reason or another, they were missed.

Ageing risk highlights exist to close that gap between what you could have known and when you chose to act.

Why delivery issues feel unexpected

Organisations often describe missed delivery as unexpected. How many times have we heard “It came out of nowhere” or “Everything seemed fine until last week” or “It was only a low risk”

But such claims are unhelpful and the issues are rarely unexpected.

What actually happened is that the important signals were ignored, the work was ageing quietly, and there was no meaningful response. Because nothing was technically “late” yet, nobody felt they should take action.

Ageing risk is how issues announce themselves early.


Work Item Age on its own is insufficient

If you’ve read this entire series (or meaningful Kanban literature) you would know that by now we’ve established that Work Item Age is the most important real-time flow metric. But Age on its own only tells you how long something has been in progress.


It doesn’t contain information about what’s normal, or how much risk it carries or what the impact would be. To make such judgement we need more context.

And this is where ageing risk highlights come in.


Risk is always relative

If a work item has been in progress for 12 days, this might be perfectly healthy in one system and very alarming in another.

The age of work becomes meaningful only when compared to historical cycle time, relevant percentile thresholds and your Service Level Expectation (SLE).

So risk is only relevant in your current context e.g. “relative to what normally happens here”.

Ageing risk highlights make that comparison explicit.


How to turn work item age into a signal

Historical cycle time distributions give us a powerful way to interpret work item age.

Here’s how to read it. When an item reaches:

•     the 50th percentile, it is already older than half of your completed work
•     the 70th percentile, it is older than most work you’ve ever delivered
•     the 85th percentile, it is approaching your SLE boundary

Each of these thresholds represents a change in risk, an important signal.

Ageing risk highlights use these thresholds as intervention triggers, not judgement points.


Why waiting until work hits the SLE is too late


Many teams only pay attention to a work item once it breaches its SLE.

That’s like only reacting when the smoke alarm goes off.

By the time an item crosses the SLE threshold one or more of these becomes true

•     you have limited options available
•     there is a lot of attention so urgency has increased
•     the attention makes decisions emotional
•     anything you consider has political impact

The goal of ageing risk highlights is to create conversations at the right time, when options are available and calm action is possible.


What are silent blockers


The problem with blockers is that often, most of the wasted time is because we didn’t know they are blockers. Let’s call them silent blockers.

They are silent blockers when

•     work appears active but isn’t progressing
•     items that get a bit of attention occasionally makes them appear “in flight”
•     tasks that nobody wants to admit are stuck

Making a decision if something is a blocker isn’t always easy. However the impact of delay adds up and eventually creates an issue.

When visualised and used properly, age is often the only thing that could expose these items.

If Age is increasing and nothing else is changing, it’s time to pause and investigate.


Teams rarely escalate ageing work


Teams usually know when something is getting risky. They just don’t shout about it.

There could be many reasons. Here are a few I can think of:

•     Because nothing is really “late”
•     Because escalation is seen as failure in their organisation
•     Because there is a conflict of priorities that nobody talks about
•     Because they think they don’t have the authority to change the situation

This is where ageing risk highlights can be helpful. This simple chart shifts escalation from personal judgement to system signal

The conversation changes and the concerns above are less valid. It’s no longer

“We think there is a problem”, it becomes “Our data says this item is now high risk”

This may be subtle but is very powerful.


How to use Ageing Risk Highlights


Ageing risk highlights are there to visualise a signal. This signal should trigger a discussion of options.

Here are some examples of what these options might be:

•     swarming or pairing to solve a problem or remove a bottleneck
•     removing or renegotiating scope
•     escalating a blocking dependency
•     deprioritising other work to free capacity
•     breaking the item into smaller deliverables

When you don’t visualise the signal, the perception might be that your team doesn’t work hard enough.


Your leaders must learn to pay attention earlier


When you manage work on a Gantt chart, it’s difficult to see when something has doubled its risk. And so you spot the problems when it’s too late - e.g. a date was missed, someone complained or another team escalated a dependency.

Ageing risk highlights brings a timely signal to leadership’s attention.
The time of your reaction has a direct influence on the cost of delay.


How about if the signal is too frequent?


This would point to a system problem. Some things to check: too much WIP? large work items? dependencies discovered too late? unclear decision policies? too many approval steps?

Ageing risk highlights expose such patterns quickly so make sure you don’t ignore the signal.



When Kanban stops being just about the team


It’s tempting to think of Kanban metrics as team level tools and many teams do just that.

But when you use ageing risk highlights well you begin to realise that you are breaking the team boundary.

When responding to ageing risk you often need to reprioritise, or change scope, or cross team collaboration or senior leadership decisions. All of these have scope to go beyond one team.

This highlights the important role of leadership and the value they need to add in order to help the system function well.


The consequences of not acting on the aging risks
When ageing risk is NOT visible
work ages quietly, forecasts become unstable, urgency arrives suddenly, blame replaces learning

When ageing risk is visible
conversations happen earlier, options remain open longer, trust improves, delivery becomes calmer and more predictable


The difference between the first and second is attention, not effort.


Ageing Risk Highlights turn metrics into management


Still not convinced? Have you ever tried it?


Ageing risk highlights transform your flow data into a management system.


They create a signal for you to follow, before your delivery starts flagging red.

If you have a Kanban system that tracks work item age but but then you don’t do anything with it then you are collecting evidence and choosing not to act on it.
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In the next post, we’ll look at Work Item Breakdown Support, and why oversized work is not a team skill issue, but a leadership responsibility disguised as planning.