BASD 2019 - Measuring Flow: Metrics that Matter
- 1. excella.com | @excellaco Measuring Flow: Metrics that Matter Julie Wyman & Hunter Tammaro
- 2. excella.com | @excellaco Agenda • Why is flow so important? • How do we measure flow? • Practice!
- 3. excella.com | @excellaco Utilization vs. Flow What’s the difference?
- 4. excella.com | @excellaco Prioritizing Utilization Fully utilized, but spend most of the time waiting Slow flow through the system Slow to respond to change
- 5. excella.com | @excellaco Prioritizing Flow Work almost always moving Rapid flow through the system Short response time reduces effect of impediments
- 7. excella.com | @excellaco Throughput How many items in a given period of time?
- 8. excella.com | @excellaco What it measures What: Number of work items completed in a given length of time Why: Predict how long to complete a given set of work Get a sense of team stability0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 #ofWorkItemsCompleted Week
- 9. excella.com | @excellaco Comparison to Velocity Similarities • Team delivery over time • Provides predictability Differences • Independent of work item size • Not tied to a sprint • Simplicity of collection
- 10. excella.com | @excellaco Lead and Cycle Time How long from start to finish?
- 11. excella.com | @excellaco What it measures Backlog Ready Develop Validate Done Doing Done Cycle Time Lead Time
- 12. excella.com | @excellaco How to collect Backlog Ready Develop Validate Done Doing Done Cycle Time
- 13. excella.com | @excellaco Average Cycle Time What: The arithmetic mean (adding a group of numbers and dividing by the count of those numbers) Why: Helps visualize trends and provides data for predicting delivery 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 CycleTime(days) Sprint
- 14. excella.com | @excellaco Average Cycle Time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 CycleTime(days) Sprint Stories Bugs Overall What: The arithmetic mean (adding a group of numbers and dividing by the count of those numbers) Why: Helps visualize trends and provides data for predicting delivery
- 15. excella.com | @excellaco Cycle Time Distribution What: Shows how often each cycle time occurs Why: Differentiate between trends and outliers0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 #ofoccurrences (oftheparticularcycletime) Cycle Time (days) 85% clear rate 95% clear rate
- 16. excella.com | @excellaco Use in Scrum & Kanban • Central to Kanban to show progress in lieu of sprints • Useful in Scrum to promote flow within a sprint to avoid “hockey stick” shaped burndown 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 StoryPointsRemaining Day
- 17. excella.com | @excellaco Cumulative Flow Diagram How is work moving along?
- 18. excella.com | @excellaco What it measures What: Number of work items in a given status over time Why: Highlights bottlenecks, visualizes amount of work in progress and cycle time, shows end-to-end flow through system0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 NumberofItems Days Done Testing Development Ready Analysis Cycle Time WIP
- 19. excella.com | @excellaco How to collect Day Analysis Ready Develop Test Done 1 4 5 2 0 0 2 4 4 3 0 0 3 4 4 3 0 0 4 8 4 3 0 0 5 7 5 2 2 0 6 7 5 2 2 0 7 6 6 1 1 2 8 4 8 0 1 3 9 5 8 0 1 3 10 5 4 3 2 4 Test
- 20. excella.com | @excellaco Comparison to Burndown Chart • Independent of work item size and iteration • Gives insight into bottlenecks on intermediate steps • Accounts for changes in scope • Shows WIP and cycle time in context 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 StoryPointsRemaining Day
- 21. excella.com | @excellaco Cumulative Flow Diagram 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 NumberofItems Days Analysis Ready Development Testing Done
- 22. excella.com | @excellaco Benefits of Improving Flow Even for Scrum teams!
- 23. excella.com | @excellaco By delivering some stories earlier Reduce risk Improving ability to make adjustments Increase feedback Across the team and throughout the Sprint Smooth workload Improve flow to…
- 24. excella.com | @excellaco Wrapping it up And some additional resources
- 25. excella.com | @excellaco Additional Resources • Burndown Charts vs Cumulative Flow Diagrams • 7 Lean Metrics to Improve Flow • Lean Metrics: Measure Predictability with Facts over Estimates • Using Flow Metrics to Deliver Faster • More Cumulative Flow Diagrams
- 26. excella.com | @excellaco How to reach us… Julie Wyman julie.wyman@excella.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-wyman/ Hunter Tammaro hunter.tammaro@excella.com @htammaro https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmhunter/
- 27. excella.com | @excellaco Visualize flow regardless of Agile approach used Flow metrics… • Are simple to collect • Can be used for predictability and planning purposes • Provide richer insights into a team’s bottlenecks and improvement areas
- 29. excella.com | @excellaco Extra practice! Flow metric samples
- 30. excella.com | @excellaco Throughput 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 #ofWorkItemsCompleted Week
- 31. excella.com | @excellaco Cycle Time Distribution 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 5 10 15 20 25 #ofoccurrences (oftheparticularcycletime) Cycle Time (days)
- 32. excella.com | @excellaco Cumulative Flow Diagram 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 Analysis Ready Development Testing Done
- 33. excella.com | @excellaco Cycle Time Scatter Plot What: Shows cycle time of individual work items in the order completed Why: Reflects cycle times within iterations and when outliers occurred 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 CycleTime(days) User Story Number (in order completed)
- 34. excella.com | @excellaco Cycle Time Scatter Plot 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 CycleTime(days) User Story Number (in order completed) User Story Defect Expedited