THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO

Flow Metrics

Download 17 metrics poster

What are Flow Metrics and how can they optimize software delivery? Learn about the framework that takes your tech-driven business to the next
level.
Shortcuts

1. Introduction

2. What are Flow metrics?

1. Flow Velocity

2. Flow Time

3. Flow Efficiency

4. Flow Load

5. Flow Distribution

3. The benefits

1. Measure what matters – End-to-end flow

2. Move from project to product

3. Correlate Flow Metrics with business outcomes

 4. How to use Flow metrics?

1. Measure value delivery with Flow items

2. Support Agile & DevOps approach

3. Incorporate Flow metrics in OKRs

5. Best practices

6. Conclusion

Introduction
What are Flow Metrics and why are they gaining importance alongside DORA metrics? While DORA makes up a small part of Value
Stream Management (VSM), the development part, Flow Metrics are being used to measure the end-to-end flow of a software value stream.

In this article, we’ll explain how the Flow Metrics; Velocity, Efficiency, Distribution, Time, and Load help business leaders, IT, and lean
practitioners measure the value software generates for their organization and how these metrics facilitate decision-making processes.

What are Flow metrics?

 Flow Metrics are used to measure how value moves through the value stream of a software product from one end to the other end. Once
evaluated against business results, the five metrics Velocity, Efficiency, Time, Load, and Distribution offer important insights and expose
weaknesses and bottlenecks.

Metric Explanation
Flow Velocity Measures how productive a process actually is.
Captures the time that a flow item takes from start to
Flow Time completion, which includes both active times and wait
times.
Identifies whether the waste is increasing or decreasing
Flow Efficiency
within the delivery value stream.
Refers to the number of flow items that are part of the
Flow Load
value stream.
Helps decision-makers prioritize the flow items that
Flow Distribution
matter most.

The metrics that were first presented in Dr. Mik Kersten’s Flow Framework are calculated on specific Flow Items that can be defined as units
of work that are crucial to a software delivery organization. These Flow Items are Features, Defects, Debts, and Risks – any effort or
transformation that a company undertakes in relation to software delivery can be assigned to one of these core categories.

Read on and learn about each Flow Metric and how it helps companies optimize their software value streams.

E POSTER

Metrics to Help Build Better Software

n about the essential metrics that help DevOps, CTOs, Product Managers, and Engineering leaders improve engineering efficiency and help build be
ware.

Get your free copy

Flow Velocity
Flow Velocity is a metric that measures how productive a process actually is. In practice, this means tracking how many items or units of
work are completed within a specific period of time – this could be a week, two weeks, or month-to-month. Over time, the metric
accumulates historical data that teams can use to determine whether delivery rates are accelerating or if they need improving.

Along with Flow Time, Flow Velocity is also referred to as the “money-metric” – together, these metrics reveal how much business value is
being delivered and how quickly it is being delivered. Example: If a company delivers features at a low flow velocity, it runs the risk of
losing customers as they might not be willing to renew the service. It’s important to identify the reason for any delays and improve the rate
by investing in new talent or infrastructure.

Example Possible consequence Potential solution

Invest in new talent
Delivering features at low velocity Customers churning Invest in new infrastructure

Flow Time

Flow Time is a metric that captures the time that a flow item takes from start to completion, which includes both
active times and wait times. Knowing how long things take, helps teams in predicting delivery speed while
answering the common question “Why are things taking so long?”. Whereas delivery lead time in DevOps only
covers the time span from committing to deploy, Flow Time is a customer-centric measure that takes the entire
product journey into account.

The Flow Time metric allows you to analyze trends over time and can therefore be used to measure the efficacy of
acceleration investments. A long flow time means that there are elements in the process that could be improved – in
many cases, a long wait time is a cause for unnecessary delays. Once you can identify what the potential hold-up
is, Flow Time can be reduced by optimizing work processes, hiring the right experts, or lowering your Flow Load.

Example Possible consequence Potential solution

Optimize work processes
Bringing flow items from the start to the Hire the right experts
Customers churning
customer takes a long time Lower your Flow Load

Flow Efficiency
The metric Flow Efficiency is used to identify whether the waste is increasing or decreasing within the delivery value stream. It is closely
related to Flow Time above as it is comprised of the ratio of active time and wait time. In other words, Flow Efficiency shows the percentage
of time that flow items are being worked on vs. the total amount of time they spend in the value stream.

The lower the Flow Efficiency, the more waste is being produced in the process. Thus, you need to identify why items are stagnating and
come up with ways that eliminate wait times and thus long queues of items that are stuck in the value stream. This could mean less context
switching for teams or reducing the time it takes to approve a specific feature that the customers are waiting for.

Example Possible consequence Potential solution

Eliminate wait times
Waste is being produced within the Less context switching
Customers churning Reduce the feature
process/long queues of items
approval time

Flow Load

The metric Flow Load refers to the number of flow items that are part of the value stream. In other words, it’s the work in progress (WIP)
that is being measured. Too many items in the value stream tend to have a negative effect on Flow Efficiency, Velocity, and Time. However,
tracking the Flow Load helps teams recognize at what point added items are impacting the output.

The right Flow Load highly depends on the context. In general, you want to strike a perfect balance between Load, Time, and Velocity. The
ideal Flow Load will minimize Flow Time and maximize Flow Velocity. If you have smaller teams, it might make sense to reduce the
workload to increase efficiency. However, seasoned teams who are working on mature products are much more likely to succeed with a
bigger load.

Example Possible consequence Potential solution

Ignoring bug fixes or deploying only new Reassess prioritization

Misdirection in focus Hire more talent
features
 POSTER VIDEO

20 Key Questions a Microservice Microservices @ LeanIX - then, now

Catalog Answers and tomorrow

All free resources »

The benefits of Flow metrics tracking

Using Flow Metrics to measure performance in software delivery means that the entire value stream of a specific product is being exposed.
With this visibility, it is much easier to spot weaknesses and bottlenecks and make improvements to maximize benefits not only for
 customers but also for teams.

At tech-driven organizations, it is especially the CTO, engineering staff as well as the product manager and product operations manager who
benefit from value stream management based on Flow Metrics.

Below are the three main benefits that Flow Metris can offer you, your team, and your organization when properly implemented

Measure what matters – End-to-end flow

While other metrics only focus on specific parts of the value stream, Flow Metrics allows teams to create full end-to-end visibility of the
software delivery chain. With modern tools that are connected to the cloud and other used applications, this happens with real-time data, so
you get to paint an accurate picture of process times and efficiencies.

Move from project to product

With a project-centric approach in software development and delivery, it is difficult to see the big picture and even more difficult to measure
progress and efficiency. When applied in their value stream management efforts, Flow Metrics help companies move to a product- and
customer-centric approach as they can tie the flow items to specific products and adjust the process.

Correlate Flow Metrics with business outcomes

If a company is not able to measure how its investments in business-transforming software are affecting overall business outcomes, there is
bound to be waste and many misinformed decisions. With an exposed value stream, however, leaders have tangible data that can easily be
correlated to business outcomes and overall performance.

BINAR

ing Order and Clarity to your Complex Microservices

nsights to understand how to empower autonomous teams while supporting governance and encourage fast-paced software development by automa
oservice discovery and cataloging.
 Watch Now

How to use Flow Metrics?

There is more than one way to use Flow Metrics to your advantage. In fact, they can be easily integrated into existing approaches that
organizations have practiced for years. This includes Agile & DevOps approaches and OKRs (Objective and Key Results). Read on and
learn how to use Flow Metrics and how they can become part of your established tracking practices.

Measure value delivery with Flow items

With the Flow Items we mentioned earlier – Features, Defects, Risks, and Debts – it’s much easier to measure value delivery in your Value
Stream Management efforts. Both Features and Defects are pulled by the customer and can include things like user stories, customer
requirements, or bugs and incidents. Risks and Debts on the other hand are pulled by architects or risk officers that know about legal and
regulatory requirements.

Support your Agile & DevOps approaches

Find out below, how Flow Metrics can support popular approaches like SAFe (Scaled agile framework) and Agile & DevOps in the most
effective way.

SAFe: This framework is used to scale Agile and connect it to business objectives. However, SAFe operates on a much more granular level
than Flow Metrics and therefore produces so much data that decision making is still difficult. Flow Metrics take the items in SAFe and put
them into four categories only, providing structure and a high-level view.
AGILE & DevOps: While metrics like DORA are more developer-centric and therefore don’t cover the entire value stream, Flow Metrics
are needed to address other items and concerns that affect the success of software delivery. That’s why they complement Agile & DevOps
metrics in the best way.

Incorporate Flow metrics in OKRs

Many companies use OKRs (Objective and Key Results) to track processes and drive business goals. However, it is quite a challenge to
apply these metrics to the world of software delivery. That’s why Flow Metrics should be used instead of traditional OKRs. Not only do they
measure business outcomes, but also value stream improvements such as reducing bottlenecks by optimizing the Flow Distribution or
reducing the overall time when treating Flow Efficiency as an OKR.

Best practices
When implementing Flow Metrics for the first time, there are a few best practices that you should stick to in order to unleash their full
potential.

Keep in mind that every company and every product is different. That’s why you should always define your own base and target levels
for metrics on a product, team, or company level.
With such compact metrics that can be applied to any software product, it can be enticing to make direct comparisons. However, you
shouldn’t compare apples with oranges. After all, a mobile app is not the same as a backend service.
Treat metrics as a path to self-improvement and not as a control mechanism. This will motivate team members and foster empathy and
communication.
Learn from other teams that perform better or start to gamify. This doesn’t imply a competitive company culture but should be rooted
in an atmosphere of teamwork and active knowledge-sharing.

Are you part of a product team or responsible for software development in your company? Share your experiences in our State of
Developer Experience Survey »

Conclusion
With a massive shift towards tech-driven solutions, businesses can no longer apply their traditional metrics to measure how successful or
efficient their value streams are. That is why new frameworks that are optimized for software delivery are needed.

Alongside DORA metrics in DevOps, Flow Metrics are a powerful tool that helps organizations measure the value of software and whether
their investments in digital transformation are effective or wasteful.