Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Work-in-progress limit
A cap on how much is in flight at once, so that the most important things finish sooner. Starting less finishes more. Unless the limit is enforced at intake, it is decoration.
Where the standard develops it
- DE-1Prioritisation under constraintSequencing, trade-offs, saying no.
Related terms
- Cost of delay
- The value lost for each unit of time a piece of work remains unshipped.
- Portfolio governance
- An explicit, ranked and deliberately small set of concurrent initiatives at organisational scale, reviewed against evidence on a cadence.
- Trade-off transparency
- Saying no by showing the cost of yes ("we can do this, and that slips; which do you want?"), so the stakeholder makes an informed choice and the manager does not quietly absorb the demand.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Work-in-progress limit. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.wip-limit). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/wip-limit