Guide: Tracking Delivery
This guide is for anyone who needs to know where a project stands — PMs checking readiness, leads planning sprints, or stakeholders wanting a status update.
The Pipeline View
The pipeline shows how requirements flow through each stage of delivery. At a glance, you can answer: Are we ready to ship?
| Stage | What It Tells You |
|---|---|
| PRD | Are requirements defined and confirmed? |
| Design | Are UI/UX designs complete? |
| Engineering | Has development been planned? |
| Dev | Has implementation been completed? |
| QA | Has testing been completed? |
For each stage, you see four numbers:
- In-Scope — total requirements relevant to this stage
- Available — requirements ready to be worked on (not blocked by a previous stage)
- Completed — requirements that have passed this stage
- Progress % — percentage complete
Reading the Pipeline
Here's how to interpret it in practice:
"We have 12 requirements. PRD shows 12/12 confirmed, Design shows 10/12 completed, Engineering shows 3/12 planned."
This tells you: the PM is done, design is nearly done, and engineering is just getting started. The team's bottleneck is engineering planning — design is waiting to hand off the remaining 2, and only 3 requirements are ready for developers to pick up.
Spotting Bottlenecks
The pipeline includes a Sankey diagram that visualizes how requirements flow between stages. Look for:
- Wide bands at one stage narrowing at the next — work is piling up. That stage needs more attention or resources.
- Even flow across stages — healthy progress, the team is working in parallel effectively.
- Everything stuck at "Not Started" — the project hasn't moved past planning yet.
Stage Completion
Beyond the requirement-level pipeline, each stage has a high-level completion indicator:
| Stage | Complete When |
|---|---|
| PRD | Problem, users, solution, and success criteria are documented |
| Product Spec | All requirements are confirmed or out of scope |
| UI/UX | All designs are "completed" or "not needed" |
| Engineering | All requirements are "planned" or later |
| Development | All requirements have been developed |
| QA | All requirements have been tested |
This gives stakeholders the top-down view ("are we done with design?") while the pipeline gives the team the bottom-up detail ("which specific requirements still need design?").
Bug Health
The project's bug tracker shows aggregate stats:
- Total bugs reported
- Breakdown by status (Open, In Progress, Closed, Not a Bug)
A high number of open bugs late in the project signals quality risk. Zero bugs might mean QA hasn't started yet — or the project is in great shape. Context matters.
Blocker Health
Unresolved blockers — especially high-severity ones — are the clearest signal that a project isn't ready to move forward. Check:
- Total blockers by severity (High, Medium, Low)
- How many are still Open vs. Answered vs. Resolved
If you're a PM or lead, make resolving High-severity blockers a priority before the team starts building.
For detailed reference on how pipeline metrics are calculated, see Pipeline Tracking.