11. excella.com | @excellaco
Average and Median Cycle Time
What:
Average
The arithmetic mean (adding a
group of numbers and dividing by
the count of those numbers)
Median
The middle number of a group of
numbers
Why:
Helps visualize trends and provide
data for predicting delivery
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1 2 3 4 5
CycleTime(days)
Sprint
Average Median
12. excella.com | @excellaco
Cycle Time Distribution
What:
Shows how often
each cycle time
occurs
Why:
Differentiate between
trends and outliers.
May help explain
differences between
average and median
cycle time
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
#ofoccurrences
(oftheparticularcycletime)
Cycle Time (days)
13. 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)
14. 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
16. 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 stability
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1 2 3 4 5
#ofitemscompleted
Week
Throughput
17. 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
19. 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 system
0
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
21. 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
23. excella.com | @excellaco
Instructions
Review sample charts in small groups and discuss:
• What does this chart tell you about the team’s flow?
• What trends do you see?
• What questions would you want to ask this team to learn more?
• What are some possible explanations?
• How could this data help you set expectations for delivery?
29. excella.com | @excellaco
• Visualizing and understanding flow is
essential, regardless of Agile approach
used
• Lead and cycle time, throughput and
CFDs are relatively simple to collect
• Flow-based metrics provide deeper
insight without sacrificing usefulness
for predictability and planning
• Can be applied to end-to-end
processes beyond the team
30. 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
