Session Title: Cumulative Flow Diagram Patterns: The State of Your Workflows Session Overview: In a fast-paced market where customer needs change frequently, quick response to demand is critical. Fast, stable and predictable service delivery starts with workflow optimization - a pursuit of continuous improvement based on data-driven decisions. The Kanban Method suggests adopting analytical tools to evaluate workflows. This talk will revolve around the use of a simple yet powerful tool - the Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD). As work progresses and the amount of data grows, CFD plots a visual history of your workflow. It enables you to track the main flow metrics and spot bottlenecks brewing at a glance. We will explore several CFD patterns and their effect on your system efficiency and predictability while touching upon the advanced Kanban practices to help you optimize that effect. By the end of the talk, you will learn how to recognize the most common CFD patterns and what they mean for your process. You will be able to instantly detect work entering the stream faster than team capacity allows it, increasing WIP as well as upstream and downstream blockages. Discover how to achieve more consistent and predictable workflows.

1. Cumulative Flow Diagram Patterns:
The State of Your Workflows
Sonya Siderova
sonya@getnave.com

2. How many dots do you see in this picture?

3. Pattern Recognition & Decision Мaking

4. Pattern Recognition Used Alongside Data Analytics
Оptimize stock market
forecasting
Аudience research Natural Language
Processing

5. Cumulative Flow Diagram: Pattern Recognition and Workflow
Optimization
Increasing Work in Progress (WIP)
Process blockages
Productivity losses
Frequent delays
Poor predictability and other flow inefficiencies
Process evaluation and early discovery of problem areas such as:

6. Visualizing the Flow of Work on a Kanban Board

7. A Kanban Pull System

8. Building a CFD from Your Board Data
Method 1 - Listing the Stories and Тheir Arrival Dates in Each Process State

9. Building a CFD from Your Board Data
Method 2 - Listing Story Activities in Еach Process State

10. Introducing the Cumulative Flow Diagram
Development
Development (Done)
Code Review
Code Review (Done)
Testing
Done

11. Understanding the Three Key Flow Metrics
Work in progress - the amount of tasks in progress
Cycle time - the time between starting and finishing a task
Throughput - the number of tasks delivered in a certain period

12. Our goal is to limit work in progress,
reduce cycle times and
increase throughput.

13. Work In Progress
Development
Development (Done)
Code Review
Code Review (Done)
Testing
Done

14. Approximate Average Cycle Time
Development
Development (Done)
Code Review
Code Review (Done)
Testing
Done

15. Average Throughput
Development
Development (Done)
Code Review
Code Review (Done)
Testing
Done

16. Differences in gradient
The Most Common CFD Patterns
Flat lines The S-curve
Bulging bands Stair steps Disappearing bands

17. Differences in gradient
Mismatched arrivals and
departures
Strictly enforce WIP limits

18. Flat lines
Periods of no activity
Check for process
blockages

19. The S-curve
Points with little to no progress
Find out what's causing
workflow fluctuations

20. Bulging bands
Increasing WIP
Split process steps into active
and passive (queue) states

21. Stair steps
Work is delivered in batches
Consider implementing a
continuous delivery model

22. Disappearing bands
Process state being skipped
Rethink the state's purpose or
set up queue states to identify
blockages

23. Recap of the Most Common CFD Patterns

24. Thank you!
Sonya Siderova
sonya@getnave.com