DV-30
Excessive Comment Activity on Issue
Discipline
Default severity: medium
ProcessMetricsQuality
What it detects
A delivery-level issue has accumulated disproportionately many comments relative to its age and to delivery progress (status, assignee, estimate, resolution, sprint changes) — comment volume looks like goldplating or CYA overhead rather than decision records. Detected from comment event counts and timestamps only; comment bodies are never read (N2). Parent types (Epic/Feature/Initiative) are excluded. Active impediment flags raise the comment threshold. comment_count = COUNT(changelog WHERE field contains \'Comment\') delivery_changes = COUNT(changelog WHERE field IN delivery_fields AND NOT comment) age_days = max(1, issue.age_days) is_flagged = active impediment flag on issue min_count = is_flagged ? config.discipline.excessive_comment_flagged_min_count // default: 15 : config.discipline.excessive_comment_min_count // default: 8
Detection formula
IF issue.type IN delivery_types AND age_days >= config.discipline.excessive_comment_min_age_days // default: 5 AND comment_count >= min_count AND comment_count > delivery_changes * config.discipline.comment_to_change_ratio // default: 3 AND comment_count / age_days > config.discipline.excessive_comment_rate_per_day // default: 1.5 THEN FLAG excessive_comment_on_issue IF comment_count >= config.discipline.excessive_comment_critical_count // default: 20 (30 if flagged) AND (story_points IS NULL OR story_points \<= 5) THEN CRITICAL Report: comment_count, delivery_change_count, age_days, comments_per_day, is_flagged, story_pointsExamples 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 a delivery-level issue has accumulated disproportionately many comments relative to its age and to delivery progress (status, assignee, estimate, resolution, sprint changes) while excessive comment min age days is set to 5.
Suggested response
Enforce assignee, field, hierarchy, and sprint hygiene rules your team agreed on.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
A delivery-level issue has accumulated disproportionately many comments relative to its age and to delivery progress (status, assignee, estimate, resolution, sprint changes) — comment volume looks like goldplating or CYA overhead rather than decision records. Detected from comment event counts and timestamps only; comment bodies are never read (N2). Parent types (Epic/Feature/Initiative) are excluded. Active impediment flags raise the comment threshold. comment_count = COUNT(changelog WHERE field contains \'Comment\') delivery_changes = COUNT(changelog WHERE field IN delivery_fields AND NOT comment) age_days = max(1, issue.age_days) is_flagged = active impediment flag on issue min_count = is_flagged ? config.discipline.excessive_comment_flagged_min_count // default: 15 : config.discipline.excessive_comment_min_count // default: 8
Why it matters
When "Excessive Comment Activity on Issue" 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 "Excessive Comment Activity on Issue" 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.