Looking for founders tracking handoff time instead of velocity

I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in cross-team workflows.

Many startup founders keep measuring feature velocity. Yet, projects still stall because nobody measures the dead zones where a task just sits between teammates.

Agreement exists, but the next action has no clear owner or threshold trigger. "Soon" becomes a casual pass that lets everyone off the hook.

What rule helps your team protect one priority from being replaced by the next one?

I’m interested in hearing how other builders make inactivity visible.