DV-02
Unassigned Issue Approaching UCL
Discipline
Default severity: medium
ProcessMetricsQuality
What it detects
An unassigned issue has been open for more than the configured fraction of the UCL cycle time — it is becoming an outlier with no owner to escalate to. The combination of no owner and high age is the highest risk pattern.
Detection formula
age_warning_fraction = config.discipline.unassigned_ucl_fraction // default: 0.5 IF issue.assignee IS NULL AND issue.age_days > UCL * age_warning_fraction THEN FLAG IF issue.assignee IS NULL AND issue.age_days > UCL THEN CRITICAL — outlier with no ownerExamples in practice
- Assignee, field, hierarchy, or sprint hygiene rules are violated on active work.
- Issues miss mandatory fields or ownership while still in progress.
- A team shows an unassigned issue has been open for more than the configured fraction of the ucl cycle time while unassigned ucl fraction is set to 0.5.
Suggested response
Enforce assignee, field, hierarchy, and sprint hygiene rules your team agreed on.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
An unassigned issue has been open for more than the configured fraction of the UCL cycle time — it is becoming an outlier with no owner to escalate to. The combination of no owner and high age is the highest risk pattern.
Why it matters
When "Unassigned Issue Approaching UCL" 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
Enforce assignee, field, hierarchy, and sprint hygiene rules your team agreed on.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Unassigned Issue Approaching UCL" 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.