The percentage of completed issues that backtracked to a previous state (for example, from “In Review” back to “In Progress”) at least once.

Issues have a happy path going through the development lifecycle from “to-do” through to completion based on your team’s process. It’s important to understand if this process is breaking, and Issue Rework Rate allows for this analysis.

A high Issue Rework Rate can indicate that there is an underlying issue in the development process. For example, tickets may not be fully fleshed out or have the proper requirements, causing issues to have to revert to a previous step before being accepted and ultimately resolved. If your Issue Rework Rate is high, it might be worth checking in with the product team to align on product requirements, understand acceptance criteria, and clarify expectations.