Measuring Backlog Health for Performance | Part 2

A Well-Stocked Kitchen Still Can’t Save a Congested Restaurant

A restaurant can have fresh ingredients, prepped stations, and chefs ready to cook.

But if orders enter the kitchen faster than meals leave it, congestion builds immediately.

That’s the part backlog health completely misses.

Part 1 exposed the first problem: prepared work is not delivered work.

Here’s the next one: backlog health measures readiness in isolation. It says nothing about whether incoming work is aligned with the system’s ability to finish work.

That’s why queues silently explode.

A much more honest view emerges when you observe the system over time through something like a Cumulative Flow Diagram.

Now the problem becomes visible.

You can see arrivals rising faster than departures. You can see inventory widening. You can see congestion forming long before delivery collapses.

Backlog health cannot show this because it evaluates work statically.

Flow shows work dynamically.

And software delivery is a dynamic system.

The danger of measuring Product Owners or Squads on backlog readiness is that it rewards feeding the system more “ready” work — even when the system is already overloaded.

The queue looks healthier. The delivery system gets sicker.

Because flow does not improve when more work becomes ready.

It improves when work enters and exits the system in sustainable balance.