Flow Metrics and Why They Matter to Teams and Managers

I continue to work with people who have trouble with their agile approach. They tell me their relative estimation isn't working for them. They continue to roll over items, from sprint to sprint. They've rolled over some items for six months or longer. The people feel demoralized. And the Scrum Masters or agile project managers have no idea how to fix the situation.

That's when I recommend they use the flow metrics instead of any of their more traditional measures. Because their current measures are not helping.

Flow metrics are the one “secret” that can improve agility in any approach. These metrics expose the principles behind agility. When teams measure these four metrics, they can see their reality and decide what to do, to create a better environment. And, as with most principles, there's a little difference in how they matter to teams and managers.

First, let's discuss what the flow metrics are.

Flow Metrics

Here are the four flow metrics:

• WIP, Work in Progress. All the work that's in progress: started and not yet finished.
• Throughput: The number of work items a team/manager can complete per unit of time.
• Cycle time: The time to release value, as a trend.
• Aging: How long a piece of work has been in progress.

While the flow metrics are independent, they create interactions and dynamics that affect how a team or a manager works.

Let's start with a team.

How Flow Metrics Interact

Imagine a team that regularly completes one item every week. That's their regular throughput. Now, someone thinks they need “more” done. Maybe something in the market changed, or management is unhappy with the team's throughput. Or, maybe a competitor is gaining ground. Whatever that thing is, the organization wants “more.”

A well-meaning person asks the team to start another item this week and finish it. That increases the team's WIP. However, unless the team changes something about how they work, they do not increase their throughput, all because they started one more item.

Now, their throughput has decreased because they're working on two items and did not finish either of them. Worse, their cycle time increases. And now, they have two older items, increasing the age of all the items.

The demand for more work increases, all because the team didn't finish “enough.”

That's a reinforcing feedback loop. As the WIP increases, cycle time increases. The team has lower throughput, which leads to older items. All of that increases their WIP.

Around and around we go, creating an ever-worse environment for the team.

If you've ever seen a team “roll over” work from one sprint to another, you've seen this dynamic. This is why relative estimation and velocity don't help, but measuring cycle time works.

The good news is the team can intervene anywhere and make improvements.

Team Interventions

Here are questions the team can ask:

• What's the one thing we should work on and finish? (Start with WIP.)
• How old is our oldest item? Is that still valuable? (Start with aging.)
• What should we change about our work so we can reduce our cycle time? (Focus on cycle time.)
• How can we increase our throughput? (Focus on throughput.)

I tend to start with either of the first two questions, because they focus on one thing the team can finish. When the team reduces its WIP to one item, the team must change the way it works. (I addressed that collaboration issue in Tip 3 in Three Practical Tips to Start Your Next Year Strong.)

Then, the lower the WIP, the higher the throughput, the lower the cycle time, and the reduced number of old items. That's the same feedback loop, but in a way that sustains the team.

Is “one item” always the right number for WIP? No. In Create Your Successful Agile Project, I recommend the team start with the number of people on the team divided by two. If you have an odd number of people, take the “floor.” So if you have five people, use two as your maximum WIP.

But your team might want to start with team changes to reduce cycle time and increase throughput. You can start anywhere because it's a feedback loop.

Managers work differently. So the metrics don't change, but management interventions do change.

Management Interventions

The flow metrics interact the same way for managers as they do for teams. However, managers do not deliver features. Instead, they deliver decisions. That's why the ideas in Why Minimize Management Decision Time matter so much.

The longer managers have decisions in progress (decision aging), the more decisions they have in progress (their WIP). The higher a manager's WIP, the longer the cycle time and the lower the throughput. That means people don't know what to do and decide for themselves. People can't wait any longer for a management decision.

Managers can ask slightly different questions:

• Do I need to make this decision, or can I delegate it to someone or some other team? (That reduces WIP.)
• Is this decision still valuable? (Reduce aging.)
• What decisions can I make today to get this off my plate? (Reduce cycle time.)
• Who else do I need to make this decision and how can we decide today? (Increase throughput.)

While the questions are a little different, managers can use the feedback loop to create a feedback loop that works for them, not against them.

Flow Metrics Can Guide Better Decisions

When teams and managers see their WIP, cycle time, throughput, and aging, they can decide what they might want to change. Is it time for more collaboration? Maybe start with the value question first, as in “What's the most valuable thing we can finish today?”

Flow metrics matter because they allow teams and managers to see and manage how they work. Use them to gain insights into where you might choose to change your work.

This newsletter touches on topics in Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility, the Modern Management Made Easy books, and Create Your Successful Agile Project.

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Pragmatic Manager: Vol 21, #1, ISSN: 2164-1196