💡Why your Kanban throughput report needs more than Jira's basic statistics

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Kanban teams need to understand their delivery capacity, but tracking completed work over time shouldn't feel like detective work. Without clear visibility into throughput trends, teams struggle to forecast delivery, spot capacity changes, and plan confidently. The Kanban Throughput Report transforms this challenge by providing actionable delivery analytics that reveal your team's true velocity and consistency patterns.

👉 Check out this interactive Jira kanban throughput report 📊 example to see it in action.

This chart is part of the Agile Velocity Charts app and fills critical gaps that Jira's native statistics simply can't address. Let's explore what's missing from Jira's default reporting and why teams need a better solution.

The limitations of Jira's native chart

Here's the reality: Jira does not provide a built-in Kanban throughput report. While Jira offers basic board statistics and issue lists, it lacks a dedicated chart that visualizes completed work over time intervals, making throughput analysis nearly impossible.

Teams trying to track throughput in Kanban face these frustrating limitations with Jira's native tools:

❌ No throughput visualization – You can't see how much work was completed in each week, bi-week, or month. There's no visual chart showing delivery patterns or trends.

❌ Missing moving averages – Without trend lines, you can't identify whether your team's velocity is improving, declining, or staying consistent over time.

❌ No drill-down capability – You can't click on a time period to see exactly which issues were completed. This makes it impossible to connect numbers to real work items during retrospectives.

❌ Zero filtering flexibility – There's no way to filter by issue type, epic, release, or custom JQL to analyze specific segments of your work. You're stuck with basic, unfiltered data.

❌ No target tracking – You can't set delivery goals or compare actual performance against expected throughput, leaving teams without clear success metrics.

These gaps leave Kanban teams guessing about their delivery capacity and struggling to forecast realistically. So, what's the solution?

Powerful alternative: Kanban throughput report by Broken Build

Say hello to the Kanban throughput report – a comprehensive Jira dashboard gadget that transforms raw completion data into strategic delivery insights. Unlike Jira's limited native statistics, this chart is built specifically for throughput analysis with the configurability and depth that Kanban teams actually need.

The solution is beautifully simple: it shows exactly how many issues your team completed in each time interval, enhanced with moving averages to reveal long-term trends. But simplicity doesn't mean basic – every element is configurable to match your workflow and answer your specific questions.

Available in the Agile Velocity Charts app, the Kanban Throughput Report brings professional-grade throughput analysis directly to your Jira dashboard. Let's explore the features that make this possible.

Kanban throughput report: Key features & JTBD

The Kanban throughput chart gadget combines powerful capabilities that work together to provide complete delivery visibility. Here's how each feature transforms your throughput analysis and planning:

📈 Configurable moving average line

The chart includes a dynamic average line that visualizes your team's long-term delivery trend, smoothing out natural fluctuations to reveal your actual capacity. You can choose from multiple calculation methods to match your planning approach: select from all intervals median or mean for overall performance, or use 2-5 interval moving averages to track recent trends.

The average line is enabled by default but can be toggled on or off in the Metrics section. Open the Calculation settings to select which average type best supports your forecasting needs – whether you're planning the next sprint or projecting quarterly delivery.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Eliminate guesswork from forecasting – Use historical averages to predict how much work your team can realistically complete in upcoming intervals

• Spot capacity changes early – When your moving average starts trending up or down, you'll know immediately if process changes or team composition shifts are affecting delivery

• Set realistic commitments – Stop over-promising by basing commitments on actual average throughput rather than optimistic estimates

• Smooth out noise – Ignore one-off spikes or dips to focus on sustainable delivery capacity, not anomalies

This feature addresses the universal Kanban pain point: "How much can we actually deliver?" With data-driven averages, those conversations become factual rather than speculative.

🗂️ Work item list with customizable columns

Each bar on the Kanban throughput report represents completed work for that interval – and you can drill down into the specifics. Click any bar to open the Work Item List, which displays all issues finished during that period in a convenient table view right within the gadget.

The real power? Customizable columns. Click the Columns button to access a searchable checklist showing every field available in your Jira instance. Display exactly the data you need – whether that's story points, assignee, epic link, priority, or custom fields specific to your workflow.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Connect throughput to real work – Transform abstract numbers into concrete work items that team members recognize and remember

• Support deeper retrospective discussions – When throughput drops or spikes, drill down to see exactly which types of work contributed to the change

• Customize for your workflow – Show the fields that matter to your team's specific context, whether you track T-shirt sizes, business value, or team capacity

This feature solves the problem of disconnected metrics – ensuring throughput in Kanban isn't just a number but a transparent view of actual completed work.

🎛️ Advanced issue filtering

Focus your throughput analysis on exactly the work that matters with powerful, built-in filters that go far beyond basic Jira functionality. After selecting a Kanban board, open the Issue Filter section to access multiple filtering dimensions.

Filter by issue type using intuitive groups (all standard issues, all sub-tasks) or select specific types. Use the searchable multiselect to filter by epics, including only the relevant initiatives in your analysis. Choose releases to narrow down the scope to specific versions. For advanced scenarios, apply custom JQL filters to achieve complete control over your dataset.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Analyze work segments separately – Compare throughput for bugs vs. features vs. technical debt to understand which work types flow fastest

• Track epic-level progress – Filter to specific epics to see completion velocity for particular initiatives without drowning in unrelated work

• Report by release – Show stakeholders exactly how much work was completed toward specific release goals each interval

• Create focused retrospectives – Filter out noise to discuss only the work stream that's experiencing problems or opportunities

• Support multi-team analysis – Use JQL to combine or separate work from different teams, projects, or components as needed

This flexibility transforms a single Kanban throughput graph in Jira into multiple analytical views, each answering different strategic questions about your delivery process.

🎯 Target lines for goal tracking

Track your delivery goals directly on the throughput chart with custom target lines. Open the Targets section and add one or more reference lines using the simple configuration form. Each target appears as a horizontal line across the chart, making it instantly clear whether your current throughput meets, exceeds, or falls short of expectations.

Compare your actual completion bars against these targets to see performance alignment at a glance. Multiple target lines let you track different goals simultaneously – perhaps a "minimum acceptable" baseline and a "stretch goal" upper target.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Visualize performance expectations – Make goals concrete and visible rather than abstract commitments living in meeting notes

• Align team on delivery targets – Everyone sees the same success criteria on the dashboard, eliminating confusion about what "good" looks like

• Catch deviations quickly – Spot underperformance or overcommitment immediately when bars consistently fall above or below target lines

• Celebrate achievements – When your team consistently exceeds targets, the visual proof makes recognition meaningful and data-driven

This addresses the planning problem of "Are we on track?" by transforming vague goals into concrete visual benchmarks on your Kanban throughput report in the Jira dashboard.

Wrap-up: These features work together to make the Kanban throughput report far more than a simple completion counter. It becomes a strategic tool for forecasting, planning, and continuous improvement – giving teams the visibility and control that Jira's basic statistics never could.

How Kanban throughput report works in action (Interactive example)

The best way to understand this chart's power is to experience it hands-on. We've created a fully interactive example that demonstrates all the features using sample project data. You can adjust settings, test different configurations, and see how the throughput chart responds in real time.

👉 Jira kanban throughput report example 📊 – Try the live, interactive demo!

This is a fully functional gadget from the Agile Velocity Charts app – what you see in the example is exactly what you'll get on your dashboard, updating automatically with your team's live data. Test-drive it to experience how throughput analysis should work.

Start tracking delivery trends with confidence

Implementing a comprehensive Kanban throughput report transforms how teams understand and improve their delivery process. Instead of guessing about capacity or tracking completions manually, teams gain instant visibility into throughput kanban metrics that drive smarter planning and realistic commitments.

When tracking throughput in Kanban becomes this simple, it transforms team behavior:

✅ Forecasting becomes data-driven – No more wishful thinking. Use historical throughput trends and moving averages to predict realistic completion dates and sprint commitments.

✅ Retrospectives get focused – Drill down from throughput changes to specific work items, making retrospective discussions concrete and actionable rather than speculative.

✅ Capacity planning improves – Understand your true delivery capacity across different work types, letting you balance backlogs intelligently and set achievable goals.

✅ Process improvements become measurable – See exactly how workflow changes impact delivery speed, proving whether experiments actually work before committing to them permanently.

✅ Stakeholder communication gains credibility – Share transparent delivery metrics that build trust and set realistic expectations, replacing vague status updates with concrete completion data.

The Kanban throughput chart bridges the gap between Jira's raw data and actionable delivery insights, turning completion counts into strategic intelligence.

Ready to see exactly how your team's throughput looks with proper visualization? Explore the interactive demo to experience all the features we've covered: 👉 Kanban throughput chart example 📊

When you're ready to add this chart to your own Jira environment, you have two options:

1. Install the Agile Velocity Charts app to get the Kanban throughput report as a standalone dashboard gadget.

2. Or choose the comprehensive Agile Reports & Gadgets bundle, which includes not just the Kanban throughput chart gadget but also the Agile Velocity Chart, Agile Cycle Time Chart, and Agile Burnup Burndown Charts – giving you a complete analytics toolkit for Agile delivery tracking.

Both options offer a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and they're completely free for teams of up to 10 users, making professional-grade throughput analysis accessible to teams of any size.

Stop guessing about Kanban throughput and start tracking it with clarity. Your team's throughput story is waiting to be told! 🚀