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Feature - Investment Strategy

Investment Strategy provides a high-level, executive view of where engineering effort is being invested—across New Value , Feature Enhancements , Developer Experience , Keeping the Lights On (KTLO) ,…

heather.hazell
Updated by heather.hazell

Investment Strategy provides a high-level, executive view of where engineering effort is being invested—across New Value, Feature Enhancements, Developer Experience, Keeping the Lights On (KTLO), and the Inefficiency Pool. Unlike developer-focused operational metrics, Investment Strategy reflects strategic work distribution based on project-management issues, not pull requests or FTE calculations.

TL;DR

  • Built entirely from Jira/Azure issues, not PRs or Git activity.
  • Shows high-level work distribution across five strategic categories.
  • Uses a rule-based engine (keywords, issue types, labels, fields) to classify issues.
  • Updates once per day.
  • Includes a computed Inefficiency Pool based on friction in the delivery process.

Overview

Investment Strategy analyzes issues worked on in the selected timeframe and assigns them to one of five strategic categories using rule-based classification. It helps leaders answer:

  • Where is engineering time being spent?
  • Are we investing in the right areas?
  • How much work is new value vs. maintenance vs. experience improvements?
  • Where are inefficiencies accumulating?

The view is built for executives and senior leaders who need a clear picture of how engineering work aligns with strategic priorities, without having to interpret raw metrics or ticket lists.

Supported Categories

The following categories are fixed and appear in this order in the UI:

  • New Value – Net-new product capabilities and features that create new value for customers.
  • Feature Enhancements – Improvements and extensions to existing features.
  • Developer Experience – Work that improves the engineering environment, tooling, and productivity.
  • Keeping the Lights On (KTLO) – Maintenance, reliability, bug fixing, and operational work.
  • Inefficiency Pool – A computed bucket representing friction and inefficiencies in the delivery process.

Categories (except the Inefficiency Pool) are driven by the Investment Strategy rules engine, which classifies issues based on fields from your PM tool.

Before You Begin

  • Required integrations: Jira or Azure Boards
  • Required access: Admin or Editor
  • Teams should be mapped for meaningful team-level breakdowns.
  • Issue hygiene matters: consistent use of issue types, labels, tags, and fields improves classification accuracy.

Where to Find Investment Strategy

  • Go to the Resources in LinearB.
  • Select Investment Strategy

How Investment Strategy Works

1. Categorization is based on PM issues only

Investment Strategy does not use PRs or Git data directly. Instead, it evaluates issues from your project-management tool (Jira or Azure Boards) and assigns them to categories based on their metadata.

Fields used for classification can include:

  • Issue types (e.g., Story, Bug, Task)
  • Projects
  • Epics / parent work items
  • Labels or tags
  • Custom fields (Jira) or Fields (Azure Boards)
  • Keywords in titles or descriptions

This categorization is performed during the daily refresh; there is no manual tagging step for Investment Strategy itself.

2. Issues are evaluated against a rule set

Each issue is evaluated against your Investment Strategy rule set in order. The first matching rule wins and determines the category.

Rules may match based on any combination of fields your PM tool exposes (for example: project, issue type, label/tag, or custom field values). You can refine rules over time as your taxonomy matures.

3. The Inefficiency Pool is computed automatically

The Inefficiency Pool is a special category that highlights work associated with friction in the delivery process. It is derived from a combination of:

  • Idle time in pull requests
  • Associated effort for those issues
  • Active workdays during the analyzed period

This category is not controlled by rules and cannot be configured manually. It exists to surface systemic delays and inefficiencies as a distinct part of the investment mix.

4. Data is refreshed daily

Investment Strategy runs on a daily refresh cycle. New or updated issues are picked up in the next daily run and reflected in the dashboard automatically.

Using the Investment Strategy Dashboard

Category Distribution

The main chart shows the percentage of work assigned to each of the five categories for the selected timeframe. This is intended for answering high-level questions such as:

  • Are we investing enough in new value vs. maintenance?
  • Is Developer Experience work visible and appropriately sized?
  • Is KTLO or the Inefficiency Pool growing over time?
Team Breakdown

The team view shows how each team contributes to the overall investment mix. It helps identify teams that may be overloaded with KTLO work, heavily focused on new value, or spending significant time on Developer Experience.

Issue Drill-Down

Clicking into a category or segment opens an issue-level drill-down. From here you can:

  • Review which issues drove a specific category percentage.
  • Confirm that classification aligns with expectations.
  • Spot outliers or misclassified work items.
Trend Analysis

By adjusting the date range, you can see how investment distribution shifts over time. This is especially useful for:

  • Comparing current quarter vs. previous quarter.
  • Checking whether planned changes in focus (e.g., more New Value) actually occurred.
  • Monitoring whether the Inefficiency Pool is trending up or down.

Best Practices

  • Start simple: Begin with a small number of rules that reflect your current language (e.g., labels for New Value vs. KTLO).
  • Standardize taxonomy: Align issue types, labels, and fields across teams so classification is consistent.
  • Review regularly: Revisit Investment Strategy monthly or quarterly with engineering and product leadership.
  • Watch the Inefficiency Pool: Use changes in this category as a prompt to investigate bottlenecks in your delivery process.

Relationship to Cost Cap & Financial Planning

Investment Strategy is not a financial calculator, but it provides the strategic mix that Finance and leadership teams can use alongside LinearB’s Cost Cap reporting and allocation data. By understanding how much work falls into New Value, Enhancements, Developer Experience, KTLO, and the Inefficiency Pool, you can validate whether engineering effort aligns with budget and long-term strategy.

Troubleshooting

Issues are categorized incorrectly
  • Check the Investment Strategy rule order—earlier rules may be catching issues unexpectedly.
  • Confirm that labels, tags, and fields in your PM tool match the rule conditions.
  • Verify that naming conventions are applied consistently across teams.
Teams missing from the dashboard
  • No issues from that team were active during the selected date range.
  • Contributors for that team may not be mapped correctly in LinearB.
High “Uncategorized” or unexpected distribution
  • Rules may be incomplete or too narrow for the current issue taxonomy.
  • Labels/fields may not be applied consistently across projects.
  • Review a sample of issues in that bucket and adjust rules accordingly.

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