Building successful and effective teams requires establishing a reliable workflow. A solid workflow enables your business to market products more quickly and to provide customers with greater value. But how can you gauge your workflow's success rate and make improvements? Simple, with statistically significant data.
Understanding how your team is doing and where they need to improve requires using Kanban metrics. Because of this, most modern online Kanban solutions come with robust analytics modules that give you useful workflow metrics. Going for Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) certification will help you master the relevant skills.
Kanban Metrics for Monitoring Development
- Burndown Chart: One of the most crucial indicators that every project manager utilizing Kanban should monitor is the burndown chart. You can see visually in the chart how many jobs are planned and how many are finished on a specific Kanban board. In addition, demonstrating when project tasks will be completed assuming the team maintains moving forward at the same rate, also aids in making predictions about future performance.
- Lead and Cycle Time Chart: This crucial Kanban measure lets you view the typical number of days your tasks require throughout a specific period. You can use the statistic to compare any specific points in the project life cycle or the entire project cycle. The Lead and Cycle time chart aims to make it easier for you to comprehend the following project-related information: Efficiency, bottlenecks, and project completion time are all factors. One of the most cutting-edge data sources for your workflow is a CFD diagram (Cumulative flow), which can measure Lead time and Cycle time. It will show the typical Cycle time, Lead time, and the number of items in progress.
- Compound Flow Diagram: This Kanban statistic shows an aggregated view of the project cards for your organization, which are categorized as Planned, working on, and done. The cumulative flow chart gives the manager a visual depiction of;
(i) The number of assignments that have been completed and which appears to help determine the overall success of a project.
(ii) The projects on which the team is currently focused.
(iii) Projects that are awaiting execution.
Kanban Metrics Overview
Try to choose a robust Kanban board program that tracks metrics and produces reports if we are going to invest in one. This functionality is provided by most Kanban-focused project management software designed for enterprises. Kanban systems offer businesses some straightforward yet effective measures directly tied to business advantages. The "time to value" or "time to market" metrics that emphasize Kanban metrics are used to generate direct business value through continuous improvement.
We should be able to distinguish between excellent and bad metrics to avoid being duped by the latter. Metrics are excellent if they contribute to system improvement, to put it simply. They are bad if they reward or penalize specific people.
Metrics are beneficial if they are: (i) Actionable and facilitate decision-making. (ii) Produce better outcomes. (iii) Reflect on reality and encourage better behavior.
Bad metrics: (i) Tend to be past-oriented. (ii) Frequently have adverse effects. (iii) Are employed as targets.
Cycle Time and Lead Time
Lead time is when a new task enters your process and finally leaves the system.
Cycle time is the period that starts when a new arrival enters the "in process" stage and work is done on it.
Two of the most important and practical Kanban metrics are Lead time and Cycle time. They can aid in your comprehension of how long tasks take to complete in your workflow. The lead time a task spends in your system from when it is ordered to when it is delivered. The amount of time you actively work on it is called cycle time.
Because they may demonstrate how long it takes for work to go through your value stream, these metrics are crucial. Lead time data can determine whether work items wait too long to join the progress stage. On the other hand, cycle time metrics assist you in comprehending the length of time required to finish a certain task.
The statistics Lead Time and Cycle Time are adequate because they:
- Provide you with valuable data regarding your workflow.
- Assist you in finding workflow bottlenecks.
- It can help get a better sense of your team's productivity.
ThroughPut
In a Kanban system, throughput represents the total work completed in a predetermined time. Therefore, the metric only counts tasks performed (nothing that is still in progress gets counted).
Along with the three metrics mentioned above, Kanban throughput is a crucial indicator that may assess an organization's ability to produce results. Utilizing the throughput histogram, you may use the throughput measure across time to monitor your team's performance.
Realizing how frequently your team completes a specific throughput over time will be useful to you. Throughput metrics help you track the evolution of your team's performance. It should ideally increase or remain the same.
The quantity of work items moving through a system or process in time is known as throughput. One of the crucial Kanban metrics is throughput. Therefore, leaders that use Lean and Agile project management make improving it a top priority.
Say you are interested in learning how many tasks your team can finish each week. To obtain that data, you must calculate the delivered work items in your workflow daily.
Say your team finishes three tasks on Monday, two on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, four on Thursday, and five on Friday. The average throughput rate of your team may be calculated with ease: (3+2+3+4+5)/5 = 3.4 jobs. You now know that your workflow's average daily throughput rate is three daily tasks, which your team can do.
Work In Progress
Limits on the amount of work in progress (WIP) are another essential parameter utilized in Kanban. This displays the number of cards in a single column at any moment. When the WIP limit is reached, new cards won't be drawn until those in the current column are finished and moved on to the following stage.
Another essential element of Kanban taught in different Kanban for beginners courses is limiting work in progress (WIP limitations) to increase team productivity. You must decide whether to divide your concentration between various tasks or concentrate on just one.
The appropriate WIP limit for your team will vary depending on several variables, such as team size. To allow everyone to concentrate on one work at a time, attempt to first impose a cap on the number of team members.
Cycle times and throughput are the two Kanban indicators that best gauge your team's performance. Pay attention to them to ensure you give your clients what they want.
WIP/Throughput = Cycle Time
It establishes the interdependence of these metrics by asserting that altering one will impact the other two. For example, cycle times (how quickly work is completed) and throughput are the two Kanban indicators that best reflect your team's performance (how much work is delivered).
Cumulative Flow Diagram
A Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is a visual tool used in Kanban to measure project health, examine workflow at different stages, identify any obstacles, and monitor the overall work progress. An alternative name for CFD is a burn-up chart. The Kanban Method focuses primarily on gradual evolutionary advancements.
When used over prolonged periods, it is most effective. Cycle time and throughput tracking have already been covered, but the cumulative flow diagram is the true star for looking at process efficiency over a more extended period. This is because the cumulative flow diagram depicts the distribution of jobs throughout each process state as they build up over time.
The number of tasks present in each process state at any given time is indicated by the color of the corresponding band. Although it is possible to determine the approximate average cycle time directly from the diagram, the main advantage of the CFD is how quickly you can evaluate your process's stability.
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Cycle Time Control Chart
The Cycle Time (or Lead Time) for your product, version, or sprint is displayed on the Control Chart. It maps the time each issue spends in a specific status (or statuses) across a predetermined amount of time. In addition, this data's average, rolling average, and standard deviation are displayed.
Bottlenecks
According to the simplest definition, a process bottleneck is a work stage that receives more work requests than it can handle at its maximum throughput capability. This disrupts the workflow and adds time to the entire production process.
In other words, even if this work stage is operating at full speed, it still won't be able to complete all the tasks quickly enough to move them on to the following stages without creating a delay.
A person, a computer, a department, or work stage may be the workflow bottleneck. The processes involved in software testing and quality assessment are typical examples of bottlenecks in knowledge work.
Unfortunately, a bottleneck is frequently only identified after it has slowed down workflow. Lean management and Kanban provide straightforward but useful analysis techniques that may prevent work congestion and identify an existing bottleneck.
Conclusion
Kanban is a well-liked Lean workflow management technique for outlining, overseeing, and enhancing information work delivery offerings. It lets you visualize your job, increase productivity, and improve continuously. On Kanban boards, work is represented, enabling you to manage even the most complicated projects in a single setting while optimizing job delivery across many teams.
You can significantly benefit from using the Kanban workflow management strategy to prioritize tasks accurately. It will direct you to prioritize work and deal with urgent situations as quickly as feasible. You must set some fundamental guidelines on your Kanban board and ensure that your team rigorously adheres to them. If you are still starting your journey in the management field, KnowledgeHut Kanban for beginners will help you ahead.
