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Definition:

Cumulative Flow diagrams is a tool used in kanban method to showcase the bottlenecks in real-time. It helps the team to visualize their effort put in completing a project and the impediments that are about to occur in the process. Cumulative Flow diagrams are used to visually represent how many items are in progress in each day.

The Cumulative Flow Diagram shows the way the tasks mount up and their distribution along the different process stages. The graph is built from different colored bands of tasks gathered in different columns. One color per column – each band tells you how many tasks sits in what stage of the process in a given time (the horizontal value). The CFD only requires 3 basic things from the process – a Backlog, an In Progress column and a Done section – using this division allows you to see the information in the diagram well. Therefore, any team that utilizes this kind of workflow division can benefit from Cumulative Flow information. Whether you use Scrum, Kanban or any other custom project management method, as long as you organize it in task groups, the CFD will be helpful to you.

Further Reading:

Lean from the Trenches: Managing large scale projects with Kanban by Henrick Kniberg

Definition:

Cycle Time or Flow time is the amount of time taken to get the work done. Specifically, in Agile Development Cycle time is the time taken to move one feature from ‘Next Ten Features’ to ‘Ready for Acceptance Test’. Cycle Time is very easy to measure.

Each feature is selected to be among the next ten features in the product along with the start date. When the feature reaches to the stage of ‘Ready for Acceptance Test”, the time taken to finish or the date, is noted down, against the elapsed days allotted for that feature in a spreadsheet. Similarly, the time taken is noted down for all the other features in a control chart, where each bar gives a visual representation of time taken to finish each feature. This bar graph is useful for predicting how long it takes to deliver a feature. It gives a great sense of horrified awe, when a company starts visualizing, because most of the times people don’t realize how long things really take!

Further Reading:

Book: Lean from the Trenches: Managing large scale projects with Kanban by Henrick Kniberg