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# Track waste

You can track and measure waste time for backlog and quality items.

In this topic:

## Overview

Waste tracking is based on an item's phases or specific conditions associated with waste. Depending on an item's phase or condition, a business rule associates the item with a category from the Waste category list. The decision to track waste is based on the waste category.

Items | Description
--- | ---
Work | For work items, you can track waste time for items in the following metaphases: In Progress, In Testing, and In Delivery. Waste tracking is not available for items in the New and Done metaphases. For details on the item workflow, see Workflow. For work items, the waste category can be closely related to the phase. For example, if an item's phase is Waiting for QA, you can set its waste category to Waiting time.
Quality | Waste tracking for quality items helps you identify waste caused by tests stuck in specific phases such as Awaiting Review, or Blocked test runs. For quality items, the waste category can be related to native status or to user-defined fields, depending on your specific workflow. For example, if a quality item's native status is Blocked or In Progress, this aligns more clearly to waste categories than an item's phase. Similarly if the native status of a run is Planned, this aligns more with the waste category of Planned than the run's phase.

You can analyze the scope of waste per item, release, or team.

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## Prerequisites

To be able to track waste, ensure that your admin has defined the following:

- Waste categories
- Business rules that associate items with waste categories

For details, see Waste management.

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## Analyze waste

The following views can help you analyze waste.

Views | Details
--- | ---
Grid view | Work and quality items: In the grid view, add specific columns to analyze waste. For details, see Fields to analyze waste.
Timeline view | Work items: In the Gantt chart, the waste time is displayed as a line under the item timeline bars. If an item moves between phases that are not associated with waste categories, a break in the line is displayed.
Dashboard widgets | Work and quality items: In the dashboard, you can add a summary widget and configure it to display: Waste time across releases Waste time per team or category Note: In the widget, a work item can be listed under different categories if it has waste associated with those categories.

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## Fields to analyze waste

The following fields are available to help you track and analyze waste. You can include the fields in the full-page view or add them to the grids.

Field | Description
--- | ---
Cycle time | For details, see Cycle time.
Waste category | Work and quality items: Displays the category defined in the Waste category list. The category displayed depends on an item's current phase and whether the item meets the condition of a relevant business rule: If an item's phase is associated with a waste category specified in the business rule, the waste category is displayed. If an item's phase is not associated with any waste category, the default category of None is displayed. Note: The waste category is automatically updated every time an item is saved.
Waste | Work and quality items: Displays the time an item spent in a phase associated with a current waste category, as specified in the business rule condition. Non-working days are excluded from the waste calculation.

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## Rules for measuring waste in backlog items

The following rules apply to tracking waste for backlog items.

Item | Details
--- | ---
Duplicated item | When a backlog item is duplicated, waste tracking for a new item starts from scratch.
Converted item | When a backlog item is converted, waste tracking for a new item starts from scratch. For example, when a defect is converted to a feature, the defect's waste time is reset, and waste tracking for the feature starts from scratch.
An item moved to another workspace | When an item is moved to another workspace, the item's waste time remains unchanged, and continues being measured in the target workspace. Note: An item's source workspace phases are available in the target workspace timeline, even if the phases do not exist in the target workflow. Waste is not tracked for phases that are not associated with waste in the target workspace. If an item's phase was associated with waste in the source workspace, but not in the target workspace, waste tracking for that phase stops when the item moves to the target workspace. Any waste associated with this phase, already recorded in the source workspace, is transferred to the target workspace. No extra waste time in the same phase is added after the item moves to the target workspace.

Note: Waste time of a parent work item, such as a feature or epic, is not an aggregation of its child items' waste time. In some cases, a parent item may not have waste, unlike its child items.

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See also:

- Release quality
- Track release progress
- Cycle time

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