Cumulative Flow Diagram
- Natallia_Mendzel@epam.com
- Denis Olevanov (Unlicensed)
- Ivan_Kaschenko
- Anastasia Baranouskaya
Purpose
A cumulative flow diagram illustrates how tasks/tickets flow through statuses - to see bottlenecks. It is a classic view on any Kanban/Lean process.
It is available in two main representations:
by status buckets: Blocked -- To Do - Ready for Development - In Progress - Done. Â
by workflow statuses in the native work management tool (e.g. JIRA or Rally) taken from Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking system>Workflows.
How metric helps
The cumulative flow diagram helps visualize "pending" work in each state of a workflow. In ideal situation all segments on the flow diagram are smooth and balanced, this typically means no bottlenecks. Otherwise, it can highlight issues about process maturity, lack of resources, disruptions of a "value chain" and so on. In this case, deeper analysis (with teams) is recommended to decide and implement improvements.
How metric works
Chart overview
There are stacked areas on the chart, and each such area covers a single status of a workflow - it shows a number of items in that status on a day-by-day basis. Chart shows a legend with statuses for all types of tickets. The statuses in the legend are ordered from the status with the most items to the status with the least items.  Chart start is a project start date set in Project Settings.
Cumulative Flow can be viewed for the following types of iterations:
whole projectÂ
selected Release
selected Sprint
Cumulative Flow is available in two views, as mentioned above: by status buckets, and by native statuses.
Statuses in Cumulative Flow by statuses are placed in alphabetical order within a bucket "To do", "In Progress", "Done". Buckets are placed as follows: "To Do" statuses are on the very top, then "In Progress" statuses, "Done" statuses are placed right above axis X.
The legend is clickable - so you can easily turn off/on any statuses for a better level of details.
Calculation
By statuses: each area shows a number of items in a specific status on a date.
By category:
| Kind of effort | ||
Items | Story Points | Estimated Hours | |
|---|---|---|---|
Blocked | number of items in Blocked status. Blocked status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Work stoppages tracking | sum of estimates in Story Points for items in Blocked status. Blocked status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Work stoppages tracking | sum of estimated time for items in Blocked status. Blocked status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Work stoppages tracking |
To Do | number of items in a 'To Do' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimates in Story Points for items in a 'To Do' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimated time for items in a 'To Do' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows |
Ready for Development | number of items in Ready for Development status. Ready for Development status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Scope Management>Definition of Ready | sum of estimates in Story Points for items in Ready for Development status. Ready for Development status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Scope Management>Definition of Ready | sum of estimated time for items in Ready for Development status. Ready for Development status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Scope Management>Definition of Ready |
In Progress | number of items in a 'In Progress' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimates in Story Points for items in a 'In Progress' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimated time for items in a 'In Progress' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows |
Done | number of items in a 'Done' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimates in Story Points for items in a 'Done' status defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows | sum of estimated time for items in a 'Done' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows |
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Calculation notes
If an item is re-opened (no matter how many times) - the last occurrence of a respective status is taken into consideration.
Only iterations with both start and end dates can be viewed.
The iterations must have the work items assigned. If there are no tickets assigned, these iterations will not be displayed in the list of iterations.
The metrics displays data on tickets added before or during the iteration only. Work items added after the iteration end date will not be counted and shown on the metric.
Sub items are not included into the metric calculation because they usually do not represent delivery value at a business level.
'Blocked' shows a number of items in 'Blocked' status or a sum of estimates for those items. 'Blocked' status is defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Work stoppages tracking.
'Done' shows a number of items in 'Done' status or a sum of estimates for those items. 'Done' status defined in Project Settings >Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Workflows.
'Ready for Development' shows a number of items in 'Ready for Development' status or a sum of estimates for those items. 'Ready for Development' is a rule defined in Project Settings>Data Sources>Task Tracking System>Scope Management Definition of Ready for development'.
Data Source
Data for the metric can be collected from a task tracking system (Jira, TFS/VSTS, Rally, etc.)