In software development and project management, DEAD is a shorthand used to categorize or describe tasks, features, or ideas that are no longer being pursued. Each letter represents a reason why work has stopped:
- Dropped: The task or feature is intentionally discontinued because it no longer aligns with goals or priorities.
- Exhausted: All potential value or exploration has been completed, leaving nothing further to gain.
- Abandoned: The initiative has been left unfinished, often due to resource constraints or shifting business needs.
- Done: The work is complete and requires no further effort.
The DEAD acronym often appears on agile boards or retrospectives as a way to track why specific initiatives didn’t move forward. By labeling items this way, teams gain visibility into decision-making patterns and can evaluate whether they are investing resources wisely. For example, repeatedly marking items as Abandoned might signal poor upfront planning, while Dropped may reflect changing priorities.
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