CO-01
Issue Carried Over to Next Sprint
Carry-Over
Default severity: medium
PrioritizationOutputRiskEffort
What it detects
An issue was not completed by the end of its sprint and was moved to the following sprint without being flagged or formally acknowledged — silent carry-over. Measured per issue. Indicates over-commitment in the source sprint. Tracked across issue count, SP, hours, and BV.
Detection formula
FOR each_sprint S: carried_issues = issues WHERE sprint_was=S AND status NOT IN done_statuses AT sprint.end_date AND sprint_now = next_sprint(S) FOR each_carried_issue I: FLAG with: source_sprint, sp, estimated_hours, bv, was_flagged=bool IF I not flagged during S THEN FLAG as unacknowledged_carryover (higher severity) carryover_rate_issues = COUNT(carried_issues) / COUNT(committed_issues_in_S) carryover_rate_sp = SUM(sp, carried_issues) / committed_sp(S) IF carryover_rate_sp > config.co.carryover_sp_threshold // default: 20% THEN FLAGExamples in practice
- A team shows an issue was not completed by the end of its sprint and was moved to the following sprint without being flagged or formally acknowledged while carryover sp threshold is set to 20%.
- Example signal: An issue was not completed by the end of its sprint and was moved to the following sprint without being flagged or formally acknowledged — silent carry-over.
Suggested response
Address chronic carry-over by rightsizing sprints and finishing or splitting stuck work.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
An issue was not completed by the end of its sprint and was moved to the following sprint without being flagged or formally acknowledged — silent carry-over. Measured per issue. Indicates over-commitment in the source sprint. Tracked across issue count, SP, hours, and BV.
Why it matters
When "Issue Carried Over to Next Sprint" 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
Address chronic carry-over by rightsizing sprints and finishing or splitting stuck work.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Issue Carried Over to Next Sprint" 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.