Measure and Manage Flow in Practice

November 2, 2011

by Zsolt Fabók

http://zsoltfabok.com & http://digitalnatives.hu @ZsoltFabok

Hey boss, are we there yet?

Sure,we’re almost there!

Do something

Might learn something from it

May get some feedback

Do it differently next time???

lead time

Queue3

Development Ongoing Done

3Development

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

2Deployment

Live

lead time

cycle time

New 33 55 2 Done Queue 11 33 7 Live

. . .

lead time

shorter lead times ≈ faster feedback

≈

faster feedback ≈ better product

Shortening means:≈

• I measure• I know the tendency• I have an idea how to do it• I actually do it• I measure again• I check on the progress

Shortening means:≈

• I measure• I know the tendency• I have an idea how to do it• I actually do it• I measure again• I check on the progress

This is CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT!

Subjective dashboardswon’t help much

image source: http://dashboard.virginiadot.org/

0

8

16

24

32

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Num

ber

of It

ems

IterationsDoneIn ProgressQueued CFD is better, but too

complicated at first

0

8

16

24

32

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Num

ber

of It

ems

IterationsDoneIn ProgressQueued CFD is better, but too

complicated at first

lead time

0

8

16

24

32

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Num

ber

of It

ems

IterationsDoneIn ProgressQueued CFD is better, but too

complicated at first

lead time

cycle time

0

8

16

24

32

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Num

ber

of It

ems

IterationsDoneIn ProgressQueued CFD is better, but too

complicated at first

lead time

cycle time

WIP

0

8

16

24

32

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Num

ber

of It

ems

IterationsDoneIn ProgressQueued CFD is better, but too

complicated at first

lead time

cycle time

WIP

new items

We need a KISS (Keep It Small and Simple)

image source: http://bit.ly/t5YKtv

0

5

10

15

20

lead time in days

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

work items, #

individual lead times in iteration 5

Now we are talking:

0

2

4

6

8

lead time in days

1 2 3 4 5iterations

average lead times per iteration*

*an iteration is 5 days long

Where did the time go?

1

2

3

4

5

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

waiting/working ratio

itera

tion

waiting working

The work items are waiting a lot!

How did I measure it?

Queue3

Development Ongoing Done

3Development

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

2Deployment

Live

working

waiting

spent time

spent time

SLA, WTF?

We are using SLA for planning

Another example:

0

3

6

9

12

15

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

number of items moved back

iterations

we changed here

One more example, just for fun :-)

‘M’ sized items on weekdays

0

3

7

10

13

Monday Wednesday Friday

average lead time

0

2

4

5

7

Monday Wednesday Friday

number of items

We don’t use it, but worth mentioning:

cycle time =work in progress

capacity (throughput)

* Little’s Law

*

(lead time)

Our “ideal” WIP Limit would be: 8 * 1 = 8

Something not related to Kanban:

-4

-3

-1

0

1

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5

satisfaction index

product ownerteam

Thank you very much for your attention!

http://zsoltfabok.com @ZsoltFabok

• The SLA idea comes from Angel Medina:• http://www.proyectalis.com/en/blog/

• The presented data is courtesy of Digital Natives:• http://digitalnatives.hu

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