OI-09
Operational Bucket Child Injection Rate
Operational Issues
Default severity: medium
Product BacklogProcessMetrics
What it detects
Children are being created under an operational bucket parent at an unusually high rate in a rolling window — the team is dumping new work into the catch-all bucket faster than it can be triaged or closed, accelerating metric contamination.
Detection formula
IF issue flagged by OI-01: window_days = config.oi.child_injection_window_days // default: 14d created_in_window = COUNT(child_issues WHERE created_date >= now - window_days) IF created_in_window >= config.oi.child_injection_min_count // default: 5 THEN FLAG child_injection_rate IF created_in_window >= min_count * 2 THEN CRITICAL Report: created_count, window_days, creation dates of recent childrenExamples in practice
- A team shows children are being created under an operational bucket parent at an unusually high rate in a rolling window while child injection window days is set to 14d created_in_window = COUNT(child_issues WHERE created_date >= now - window_days).
- Example signal: Children are being created under an operational bucket parent at an unusually high rate in a rolling window — the team is dumping new work into the catch-all bucket faster than it can be triaged or closed, accelerating metric contamination.
Suggested response
Separate operational trackers from product flow or exclude them consistently from delivery metrics.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
Children are being created under an operational bucket parent at an unusually high rate in a rolling window — the team is dumping new work into the catch-all bucket faster than it can be triaged or closed, accelerating metric contamination.
Why it matters
When "Operational Bucket Child Injection Rate" 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
Separate operational trackers from product flow or exclude them consistently from delivery metrics.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Operational Bucket Child Injection Rate" 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.