I currently say an item is "blocked" or "unblocked". > How can we unblock X? > What is blocking Y? > We have too many blocked tasks. This may work especially well in my field because the term "blocking" means in software development almost what "un-actionable" means in managementese. Off-topic anecdote: I wondered the same as you, but my motivations were different than yours. I *hate* management speak for the reason @ghoppe stated - they are often an artificial cluster of meaningless words to pretentiously avoid simplicity (ok I said it much stronger). I will never forget when my non-native English speaking friend laughed when she heard, "So now what you are going to want to do here is X" instead of simply "X". Not management speak, but illustrates what lengths we're willing to take just to use more syllables.