Now its average size is known: 35%.

The numbers were calculated for the first time: according to Kaiten research (5.2 million tasks in company trackers over six months), 35% of created tasks remain unclosed. 1,863,752 tasks settled forever in six months.

The "in progress" status is psychologically comfortable. It feels like movement, and you can report progress.

What to do about this? The Kanban method formulated it long ago: stop starting, start finishing.

Instrumentally, it looks like this:

✔️ In Kaiten, a WIP limit is set on the "in progress" stage, and the system simply won't let you take on too much.

✔️ The cumulative flow diagram honestly shows where the graveyard is growing.

✔️ The blockers report explains why: "no hands", "waiting for feedback".

All these are built-in reports in Kaiten, used by 100,000+ companies.

Boards, sprints, Gantt, and documents in one place, Free plan is unlimited.

The Kaiten team has prepared 10 free Kanban board templates. Copy them in 30 seconds and start seeing the big picture.

🔗 Get the templates

How many tasks in your backlog are older than a year? Confess.