Progress is read from trends, never from a single run. A healthy project shows a recognisable shape: early noise as setup settles, a steady burn-down as defects are fixed, and a long tail of waiver reviews. Learning that shape — and its impostors — is what makes the dashboard a management tool instead of wallpaper.
Early runs are noisy: counts swing as clocks are added, relationships corrected, and hierarchy included. Judge setup here, not design.
Middle runs burn down: open defects fall run over run as fixes land, with occasional bumps when new blocks integrate. The bumps are healthy.
Late runs flatten on waivers: defects near zero, and the remaining work is evidence and joint approvals. The tail is slow because review is slow.
Shape | What it might mean | Check |
|---|---|---|
Flat zero from the start | The analysis is blind: missing clocks or excluded hierarchy | Seed a known crossing and confirm it is reported; review setup |
Cliff drop in one run | Setup changed, scope shrank, or findings were bulk-waived | Diff setup, scope, and waiver list across the cliff before celebrating |
Sawtooth that never falls | Fixes landing alongside new defects at the same rate | Separate new-findings rate from fix rate; the design may be churning faster than signoff |
Zero defects, growing waivers | Risk converted to permissions, possibly without evidence | Audit the new waivers against the template before the milestone |
The flat zero deserves its reputation as the most dangerous shape: it is exactly what a missing clock definition produces. Every project should know the location of at least one real crossing and confirm the dashboard sees it — a living canary for setup blindness.
A setup change that narrowed the analysis, a scope change that excluded hierarchy, or bulk waiving. The setup and scope diffs plus the waiver list distinguish them — and all three must be checked before the run counts.
Keeping a known real crossing visible on the dashboard to confirm the analysis still sees it. It guards against setup blindness producing a false flat zero.