You can’t improve what you can’t measure—especially when it comes to WIP.

Here’s why your definition of WIP might be holding your team back 👇

To measure WIP effectively, you need a clear and consistent definition of what it means for a work to be “in progress.”

What’s your definition of WIP? Here’s a simple one:

WIP (Work In Progress): the number of flow items that have started but not yet finished.

What does that really mean? It means every piece of work that’s started but hasn’t been finished is considered WIP.

That includes:

️ Blocked items (due to internal or external dependencies)
️ Stale items (work that hasn’t progressed for a long time)
️ Abandoned items (work that’s been started but, for whatever reason, moved back to the backlog)

This stricter view helps accelerate data hygiene, governance, and performance improvements.

Now, here’s a more flexible definition of WIP:

WIP (Work In Progress): Flow items that are currently in one of Jira’s ‘Active Steps.’

Sounds easier, right? ⚠️

Sure, but this definition incentivises abandoning work by simply moving it back to the backlog whenever convenient, like sweeping it under the carpet. This can leave organisations with thousands of days invested in unfinished work, now sitting in the backlog—surprisingly invisible.

Tell me, does your team use a strict definition of WIP, something more flexible, or no explicit definition at all? I’d love to hear your approach!