Yes, you're right; it's not a TODO list because it's not known ahead of time. Therefore, it can't be used to track progress on the particular project itself.

Yes, you're right; it's not a TODO list because it's not known ahead of time. Therefore, it can't be used to track progress on the particular project itself. This all came up in the context of measuring productivity, though, not measuring progress on a specific project. Looking backward, it is a list of items completed. If the teams strives to keep them atomic in general, they are more likely (though by no means guaranteed) to be closer in size. So my guess is that this would correlate better to productivity than lines-of-code or time-in-seat, while still falling well short of the ideal.