Skip to main content
Table of Contents

Investment Strategy

Learn how LinearB’s Investment Strategy helps you categorize and visualize engineering efforts across KTLO, New Value, Feature Enhancements, Developer Experience, and inefficiencies—empowering teams to optimize resource allocation and align development with business goals.

Investment Strategy provides a high-level view of how engineering effort is distributed across strategic investment categories, including New Value, Feature Enhancements, Developer Experience, Keeping the Lights On (KTLO), and the Inefficiency Pool.

Investment Strategy uses the same allocation calculations and underlying data model as Resource Allocation and Cost Cap. The dashboard translates engineering effort into strategic investment categories, helping leaders understand where time and resources are being spent.

TL;DR

  • Uses the same allocation calculations and data model as Resource Allocation and Cost Cap.
  • Shows how engineering effort is distributed across five strategic investment categories.
  • Uses allocation rules and project-management data to classify work into strategic categories.
  • Updates once per day.
  • Includes a computed Inefficiency Pool based on friction in the delivery process.

Overview

Investment Strategy helps leaders understand how engineering effort is distributed across strategic investment areas. It is built on the same allocation data used by Resource Allocation and Cost Cap, then presents that data as a strategic investment mix.

Use Investment Strategy to answer questions such as:

  • 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 allocation rules and project-management data.

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 allocation accuracy.

Find Investment Strategy

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

How Investment Strategy Works

1. Investment Strategy uses Resource Allocation data

Investment Strategy is built on the same allocation calculations used by Resource Allocation and Cost Cap.

LinearB analyzes project-management data, contributor activity, and allocation rules to determine how engineering effort is distributed across strategic investment categories.

The resulting allocation data is then grouped into the Investment Strategy categories displayed in the dashboard.

2. Work is evaluated against allocation rules

Work items are evaluated against allocation rules that determine how effort is classified.

Rules may match based on fields exposed by your project-management tool, such as:

  • Issue types, such as Story, Bug, or Task
  • Projects
  • Epics or parent work items
  • Labels or tags
  • Custom fields in Jira or fields in Azure Boards
  • Keywords in titles or descriptions

Consistent project-management hygiene improves the accuracy of Investment Strategy, Resource Allocation, and Cost Cap.

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 allocation 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 work is 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 engineering effort 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, such as 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 allocation rules that reflect your current issue taxonomy.
  • Standardize taxonomy: Align issue types, labels, and fields across teams so allocation 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 Resource Allocation and Cost Cap

Investment Strategy, Resource Allocation, and Cost Cap rely on the same allocation calculations and underlying data model.

Resource Allocation shows how engineering effort is distributed across configured allocation categories. Cost Cap applies financial context to that allocation data. Investment Strategy presents the same allocation foundation as a strategic investment mix for leadership review.

Together, these views help engineering, product, and finance teams understand whether engineering effort aligns with business priorities and budget expectations.

Troubleshooting

Work is categorized incorrectly
  • Check the allocation rule order—earlier rules may be catching work 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 work from that team was active during the selected date range.
  • Contributors for that team may not be mapped correctly in LinearB.
High Uncategorized or unexpected distribution
  • Allocation rules may be incomplete or too narrow for the current issue taxonomy.
  • Labels or fields may not be applied consistently across projects.
  • Review a sample of work in that bucket and adjust rules accordingly.

How did we do?

Enabling Team-Only Mode

One Click Context for Project Delivery Trackers

Contact