RA-02
Expert Bottleneck — Single Person Primary Worklog Contributor Across Epics
Resource Allocation
Default severity: medium
ProcessOutputRiskEffort
What it detects
One person has logged the majority of time across multiple epics or features — they are the de facto implementer regardless of assignee. This is invisible in assignee-only views: the bottleneck is not in who is assigned but who is actually doing the work, often a senior expert whose knowledge cannot be substituted.
Detection formula
FOR each_person P: FOR each_epic E: person_hours(P, E) = SUM(worklog.time_spent WHERE author=P AND issue IN E.children) total_hours(E) = SUM(worklog.time_spent, issue IN E.children) person_share(P, E) = person_hours(P, E) / max(1, total_hours(E)) epics_dominated(P) = COUNT(epics WHERE person_share(P, E) > config.ra.epic_dominance_threshold) // default: 0.40 IF epics_dominated(P) >= config.ra.min_epics_for_bottleneck // default: 2 epics THEN FLAG worklog_bottleneck THEN CRITICAL if epics_dominated >= 3 Report: person, epics_dominated list, hours per epic, share per epic, risk-if-unavailable scoreExamples in practice
- One person owns a disproportionate share of critical-path or high-WIP work.
- Delivery risk rises when a single expert becomes the throughput bottleneck.
- A team shows one person has logged the majority of time across multiple epics or features while epic dominance threshold is set to 0.40.
Suggested response
Reduce single points of failure—spread critical skills and lighten overloaded contributors.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
One person has logged the majority of time across multiple epics or features — they are the de facto implementer regardless of assignee. This is invisible in assignee-only views: the bottleneck is not in who is assigned but who is actually doing the work, often a senior expert whose knowledge cannot be substituted.
Why it matters
When "Expert Bottleneck — Single Person Primary Worklog Contributor Across Epics" 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
Reduce single points of failure—spread critical skills and lighten overloaded contributors.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Expert Bottleneck — Single Person Primary Worklog Contributor Across Epics" 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.