BH-05
Done Without Sprint Assignment
Backlog Health
Default severity: medium
Product BacklogPrioritizationRiskEffort
What it detects
More than the configured percentage of resolved issues have no sprint assignment — invisible to sprint-level velocity and burndown. sprint_free_done = COUNT(issues WHERE status IN done_statuses AND sprint IS NULL)
Detection formula
IF sprint_free_done / total_done > config.backlog.critical_sprintless_pct // default: 60% THEN CRITICAL IF > config.backlog.warning_sprintless_pct // default: 40% THEN FLAGExamples in practice
- A team shows more than the configured percentage of resolved issues have no sprint assignment while critical sprintless pct is set to 60%.
- Example signal: More than the configured percentage of resolved issues have no sprint assignment — invisible to sprint-level velocity and burndown.
Suggested response
Refine or prune ageing, imbalanced, or inconsistently closed backlog items.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
More than the configured percentage of resolved issues have no sprint assignment — invisible to sprint-level velocity and burndown. sprint_free_done = COUNT(issues WHERE status IN done_statuses AND sprint IS NULL)
Why it matters
When "Done Without Sprint Assignment" keeps appearing, the team is signalling a repeatable process gap. Left unexamined, the pattern hides where work really stalls and makes improvement metrics harder to trust.
What you can achieve
Refine or prune ageing, imbalanced, or inconsistently closed backlog items.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Done Without Sprint Assignment" from firing again?
- What do the cited issues have in common — same root cause or same workaround?
- Who owns the two-week experiment and how will we verify on the next import?
Run this rule against your own tracker data with Flow Analyzer.