28 March 2024

Agile Progress : Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

Cumulative Flow Diagram definition

  • Like Burn-Up Charts, cumulative flow diagrams are information radiators that can track progress for agile projects.
    • A diagram used by Kanban is the Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD), which describes the overall flow through the Kanban system; it provides a measurement for every significant step in the workflow.
    • Tracked items can be features, stories, tasks, or use cases.
  • They help us to gain inside in to projects issues, bottlenecks & cycle times

Cumulative Flow Diagram purpose

  • By tracking total scope, Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs) communicate absolute progress and give a proportional sense of project progress (e.g., On Day 14: 15% of features have been completed; 15% have been started; and, 70% have not been started). [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.]

Cumulative Flow Diagrams vs Burn-Up Charts

  • Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs) differ from traditional Burn-Up Charts because they convey total scope (not started, started, completed) of the entire backlog.

Agile Progress : Burn-Up Chart vs Burn-Down Chart

Agile Progress : Burn-Up Chart

Agile Progress : Burn-Down Chart

Agile Progress, Tasks board and Kanban Board

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