Tools › Agile & sprint planning › WSJF Calculator
WSJF Calculator
WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) helps teams decide what to work on first: the highest Cost of Delay against the smallest job. Enter the four values and see your score instantly.
WSJF Calculator: how does it work?
WSJF = (Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction / Opportunity Enablement) ÷ Job Size. The numerator is the Cost of Delay: how much it costs us to postpone this. Dividing by size prioritises work that delivers high value for low effort. Use a relative scale (e.g. 1–10 or Fibonacci) and score items against each other, not in absolute terms.
Example
Feature A: Business Value 8, Time Criticality 5, Risk/Opportunity 3, Job Size 4 → Cost of Delay 16, WSJF 4.0. Feature B: same values but Job Size 8 → WSJF 2.0. Feature A wins even with equal value: it is cheaper to deliver.
Frequently asked questions
Which scale should I use for the inputs?
Use a relative scale your team applies consistently, such as 1–10 or the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8…). What matters is the ratio between items, not absolute numbers.
What exactly is Cost of Delay?
Cost of Delay is the sum of Business Value, Time Criticality and Risk Reduction/Opportunity Enablement. It expresses how much value you lose by postponing something.
Does WSJF work outside SAFe?
Yes. WSJF originates from SAFe but is a general prioritisation method any team can use to order a backlog by value per effort.
Facilitate retrospectives with your team?
Start for free →