Completion trend: a stall shows up here before anyone says a word
The Completion Trend widget draws one line: how many Jira issues crossed into a Done-named status, day by day. It's the closest thing on your board to a heartbeat monitor — and a flat stretch in an otherwise busy line is the fastest way to spot a stall before it turns into a status-meeting surprise.
Daily completions, 30-day range.
What it measures, and where the data comes from
This one has a single leg — Jira only, right now. Every day in the selected range gets a raw count of issues that transitioned into a Done-named status, read straight off the transition history ClickHouse keeps for every issue on the board.
Two things worth knowing about how that count is built:
- It matches on the status name (Done, Closed, Resolved, and the like), not Jira's status category — the raw changelog Jira hands us doesn't carry a category at all, so anything trying to match on category would silently count nothing.
- It's a transition count, not a snapshot. An issue that got marked Done and then reopened still shows up as a completion on the day it first crossed the line. The line tells you when work finished, not how many things are Done as of today.
The widget's footer does two small favors for you: it totals the range and calls out the single highest day, so you don't have to eyeball the peak yourself.
How to read it
Don't stare at any one day. Look at the shape: is the line climbing, flat, or fading across the range? Then look for two specific breaks in that shape — a run of zero or near-zero days interrupting an otherwise steady line, and a sharp peak that either lines up with a release date you know about, or doesn't.
A peak that lines up with a known release is confirmation, not news — good, keep going. A peak that shows up with no calendar reason behind it is worth a quick look; it might be a bulk status cleanup rather than actual work finishing, and those two things look identical on this chart.
What it tells you over time
Would you notice if this line went quiet for a single day? Probably not, and you shouldn't — people take days off, tickets sit in review, that's just normal texture. Five quiet days in the same stretch is a different question entirely, because an ordinary week doesn't look like that. The line won't tell you why completions stopped, only that they did and exactly when — which is usually enough to go ask the right question in standup instead of a vague one.
Example situations
1. A dead stretch with no calendar excuse
Four flat days in the middle of a normal range.
What you're seeing: a healthy line drops to near-zero for four days running, then picks right back up. No weekend in the middle, no holiday on the shared calendar — nothing that should have caused it.
How to react: this is the widget doing its one job — flagging a stall while it's still four days old instead of four weeks old. Don't wait for the next retro to ask about it; go find out what blocked the queue while people still remember.
2. A spike that lands right on the release date
Release shipped on the 22nd — the line confirms it.
What you're seeing: a quiet, steady line for most of the range, then two tall days right around a release you already had on the calendar, then back to baseline.
How to react: this is the good kind of surprise — use it as evidence, not just a vibe. "The release shipped" is a claim; a spike on the exact date in the completions data is a receipt.
Frequently asked
- What does the completion trend widget show?
- A daily count of Jira issues crossing into a Done-named status, pulled from ClickHouse transition history rather than a current-state field, so it reflects when work actually finished.
- What does a flat stretch in the line mean?
- Usually a stall — work in progress that is not crossing the finish line. Because it is a daily line, a flat run shows up here well before it surfaces in a status meeting.
- How is this different from Completion Rate?
- Completion Trend counts real transitions over time and has no denominator, so it is unaffected by projects being added to the board. Completion Rate expresses completion as a share of a moving total.
Related widgets
- Completion Rate — the project-level, percentage version of "is work finishing."
- Delivery Trend — the broader delivery-volume view this line feeds into.
- Issues Opened vs Closed — pairs this line against how much new work is arriving.
- Back to the widget reference.
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