Number of Item-to-Goal Links
governance
systemic
This metric captures the number of backlog items that include an explicit reference to at least one Green Product Goal. Such a link demonstrates that the item meaningfully contributes to a defined sustainability ambition, such as reducing environmental impact, improving user behavior, enhancing long‑term efficiency, or aligning with organizational sustainability strategies. By ensuring that each item is connected to a strategic sustainability objective, the metric strengthens traceability, improves alignment, and enables teams to see how iterative work contributes to broader sustainability intentions. A growing number of linked items indicates stronger integration of sustainability into daily work and provides a clear signal of strategic focus in product planning and refinement.
- Category: Transparency & Strategic Direction
- Measurement Frequency: per iteration
- Responsible Role: Product Lead
Impact
The purpose of this metric is to ensure that backlog items are not treated as isolated tasks but are clearly tied to overarching sustainability goals. This strengthens strategic coherence, helps product teams remain focused on impactful directions, and enables more effective discussions during planning and refinement. Clear Item‑to‑Goal links also make it easier to understand how incremental improvements contribute to long‑term sustainable product outcomes.
Calculation
\[\text{Number of backlog items that reference a Green Product Goal}\]This metric is a straightforward count. During each iteration, the team tallies how many backlog items include at least one reference to a Green Product Goal. An increase over time signals that sustainability goals are being actively incorporated into the backlog and that more items are aligned with the long‑term sustainability direction. Because products evolve, this metric should be interpreted as a trend indicator, with “increasing” as the desired direction rather than a fixed target value.
Example
To illustrate this metric, consider a backlog containing 12 items during an iteration.
If 5 of these items explicitly reference a Green Product Goal, the metric value is:
Since this metric represents a count, not a percentage, the result is simply the number of items with a documented link.
An increasing count over time indicates that more work is being intentionally aligned with long‑term sustainability goals.