Early Detection: Identifying Off-Track Work

The Cost of Hidden Problems

Most teams don’t realize work is off-track until it’s already too late. A story planned for three days silently drags into the fifth. A blocker festers unreported until the sprint collapses. The result is failed commitments and last-minute scrambles that damage team confidence.

Momentum tackles this head-on with a simple principle: no story should drift for more than a single day without being noticed. By structuring how progress is tracked and reviewed, teams spot trouble early and act before issues spiral.

How Momentum Detects Off-Track Work

Momentum introduces a few lightweight but powerful mechanisms for early detection:

1. Daily Actuals

Each day, stories in progress are updated with an “actual” mark. This forces visibility: if a story slips beyond its planned duration, the data shows it immediately.

2. Grace Period

Teams may grant a one-day grace period if they are confident a story will complete the next day. Beyond that, the work is officially late.

3. Escalation Tactics

When the grace period expires, the team must act. Common tactics include swarming (shifting multiple members to the late story) or reordering priorities.

4. Visual Signals

The plan clearly distinguishes “planned” vs. “actual.” Stories that run late or fail get visibly flagged—no ambiguity, no hiding.

Putting It Into Practice

Here’s how it works in a sprint:

• On Monday, a Medium story begins, planned for 4 days.
• Each day, actuals are logged.
• By Thursday, the story is still incomplete. The team allows one-day grace, confident it will finish Friday.
• On Friday, the story is still open. At this point, the team executes its predefined tactic—pausing other work and swarming the story until it’s resolved.

Planned vs. Actual Timeline

           Mon   Tue   Wed   Thu   Fri
         |-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
      
    Plan |-----------| 
  Actual |===========| ✅ Done
      
    Plan |-----------------| 
  Actual |=======================X ⚠️ Late

    Plan |-------------------------| 
  Actual |===========  ⏳ In Progress

The key isn’t perfection. It’s early visibility that prevents stories from dragging silently into failure.

Benefits of Daily Detection

Teams that adopt Momentum’s early detection approach consistently report:

• Rapid Course Correction: Problems are dealt with while they’re still small.
• Increased Predictability: Sprints aren’t derailed by invisible overruns.
• Higher Trust: Leaders see issues addressed transparently instead of hidden until the retrospective.
• Stronger Team Tactics: Regular escalation builds muscle memory for handling adversity.

Getting Started

To bring early detection into your process:

1. Track actuals every day, even if it feels redundant.
2. Define your team’s escalation tactic in advance. Don’t wait until you’re in crisis!
3. Stick to the one-day grace rule. It’s the guardrail that keeps problems visible.

With these practices, you’ll transform your sprint from reactive to proactive. Off-track work won’t sneak up on you. It will be caught, addressed, and resolved before it becomes a threat.