Backlog Currents
A prioritised backlog promises an order of work. Week by week, items climb, sink, sit still, or skip the queue altogether. This page replays those moves from your weekly exports, then shows what the flow says about how work really gets chosen.
- New
- Moved up
- Moved down
- Started
- Removed or left
Drop one export per week (or one file with a date column). “Moved” means re-prioritised by 3 or more places against the items that stayed, so shifts caused by work leaving the top don’t count.
What files do I need?
- Make a query for your backlog items with State not Done or Closed, sorted by
Backlog Priority. - Columns:
ID,Title,State,Backlog Priority. - Export to CSV once a week or sprint. Put the date in the file name, e.g.
backlog-2026-10-19.csv.
- Filter:
project = ABC AND statusCategory != Done ORDER BY Rank. - Export CSV with
Issue key,Summary,Status. Row order is used as the rank. - Same routine: one dated file per week or sprint.
- Columns
Date,ID,Title,State,Rank, one row per item per snapshot (e.g. from ADO Analytics). “Copy a sample CSV” gives this format. - Keep just-started items (Active, Committed, In Progress) in the export so the page can tell started work from removed work.
No weekly exports to hand? With the skill, Claude rebuilds your backlog's weekly history straight from Azure DevOps Analytics, then builds this same page. From Jira it takes a dated snapshot each time you run it. It works with CSVs too.
- Download the zip. No need to unzip it.
- Add it to Claude: Customize → Skills → + → Create skill → Upload a skill. Code execution and file creation need to be on.
- Ask: “Show my backlog currents from Azure DevOps”, “…take this week's Jira backlog snapshot”, or attach your CSVs.
Live data needs a read-only token, and Claude must be allowed to reach Azure DevOps or Jira (Settings → Capabilities; an admin does this on Team and Enterprise plans). In Claude Code, unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/. The skill uses your token for that one run only and never saves or shows it.
backlog-currents.zip · 45 KB
Nothing to show yet
Drop weekly CSV exports from Azure DevOps or Jira above to replay your own backlog. Or look around first with a made-up team's example.
Backlog, week by week
Rank 1 at the top. Hover or tap a bar to follow that item.
Arrivals and departures
Average items per week. Thicker arrows mean higher rates.
Promotions curve up on the left, demotions curve down on the right. Average stay uses Little’s law: average items in a section ÷ departures per week.
So what?
Conversation starters for your next refinement or retro, not verdicts.
Where started work came from
Rank each item held in the snapshot before it was started.