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Flow Efficiency

Enhancing work throughput to streamline processes, eliminate delays, and maximise value delivery across the entire workflow.

Optimising the throughput of work across the value stream to improve speed and reduce bottlenecks.

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Overview

Flow efficiency refers to the optimisation of work throughput across the value stream, focusing on minimising waste and reducing bottlenecks. This concept is crucial for organisations aiming to deliver value predictably and sustainably, as it directly impacts the speed at which teams can respond to customer needs and market changes. By analysing and improving flow efficiency, teams can identify areas where delays occur, allowing for targeted interventions that enhance overall performance.

This approach aligns closely with Lean principles, which advocate for the elimination of non-value-adding activities. Unlike other concepts such as cycle time or lead time, which measure specific durations, flow efficiency provides a broader perspective on how effectively work moves through the system. It encourages a systemic view, fostering collaboration across teams and disciplines to ensure that every part of the value stream operates harmoniously.

By prioritising flow efficiency, organisations can create a culture of continuous improvement, where teams are empowered to experiment and innovate. This not only enhances productivity but also builds resilience, enabling teams to adapt to changing circumstances and maintain a steady delivery of value over time. The focus on flow efficiency ultimately cultivates an environment where sustainable practices thrive, leading to long-term success and customer satisfaction.

Learn More about Flow Efficiency

Blog

Why Handoffs Are Killing Your Agility

Excessive handoffs in software development create delays, reduce quality, and harm team morale. Learn how eliminating handoffs boosts agility, flow, and value delivery.
Blog

Why Measuring Individual Cycle Time is Killing Your Flow (And What to Do Instead)

Measuring individual cycle time in Kanban misleads teams, hides real bottlenecks, and harms flow. Focus on system-wide metrics like PCE, WIP, and throughput instead.
Guides

Kanban Guide

Discover more about Kanban Guide and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
Guides

Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams

Discover more about Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
Blog

Stop Hiding Behind Complexity and Start Delivering Continuously

Continuous delivery is achievable for any software, regardless of complexity. Success depends on investment in automation, quality, and process improvement—not technical barriers.
Blog

Stop Promoting Branches

Explains why promoting code through multiple branches slows delivery, increases risk, and suggests GitHub Flow or Release Flow as simpler, safer alternatives for deployment.
Videos

Unlocking Code Quality: The Transformative Power of Frequent Deployments

Explores how frequent code deployments improve code quality, reduce technical debt, enable faster feedback, and support iterative, user-focused software development.
Videos

7 Deadly Sins of Agile: Greed

Explores how greed in Agile leads to overwork and reduced value, offering strategies for value-driven delivery, balanced sprints, team trust, and effective leadership.
Videos

Stop Starting and Start Finishing: The Key to Team Success

Multitasking reduces team productivity. Learn how focusing on finishing tasks, limiting work in progress, and value-based prioritisation boosts efficiency and business value.
Videos

How Do You Know How Long It Takes to Deliver Value?

Explains how Agile teams can measure and improve Time to Market using key metrics like lead time, cycle time, and time to fix to deliver value to customers faster.
Videos

What is the difference between resource efficiency and flow efficiency?

Explains how resource efficiency focuses on maximising individual output, while flow efficiency optimises the entire workflow for better value delivery in Agile processes.
Videos

In WIP, less is more.  Why?

Limiting work in progress boosts productivity by reducing multitasking, context switching, and bottlenecks, helping teams focus, finish tasks, and deliver faster results.
Videos

Understanding Kanban: A Tool for Transparency and Continuous Improvement

Explains how Kanban visualises workflows, tracks metrics, and supports continuous improvement, helping teams identify bottlenecks and enhance transparency and efficiency.
Videos

The Key to a Kanban Strategy: Understanding WIP Limits

Explains how setting and adjusting Work-In-Progress (WIP) limits in Kanban helps teams manage workflow, prevent bottlenecks, and improve productivity and collaboration.
Videos

Mastering Kanban: Creating a Pull-Based System for Workflow Efficiency

Learn how Kanban’s pull-based system boosts workflow efficiency by visualising tasks, setting WIP limits, managing bottlenecks, and enabling continuous process improvement.
Videos

3 core practices of Kanban. Improving a workflow.

Learn how to improve Kanban workflows by identifying blockages, reducing waiting times, and making continuous changes to boost efficiency and value delivery in your process.
Videos

3 core practices of Kanban. Actively managing work items in a workflow.

Explains how to actively manage Kanban workflows by monitoring work in progress, resolving bottlenecks, and optimising flow for greater efficiency and value delivery.
Videos

Story Points: A Ghost of Agile Past

Explores the problems with story points in Agile, their impact on team behaviour, and why flow metrics offer a better way to measure progress and deliver real value.
Course

Applying Flow Metrics for Scrum

Elevate Your Scrum Mastery with ‘Applying Flow Metrics for Scrum’: Transform your Agile practices with our immersive, hands-on course. Dive deep into the world of flow metrics and emerge with the skills to enhance your team’s efficiency and delivery. Join us for a journey of practical learning and real-world application – it’s time to turn data into action!
Workshops

The Importance of Batch to Optimise Flow

Discover more about The Importance of Batch to Optimise Flow and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
Videos

Maximising Deployment Frequency: The Key to Faster Time to Market and Business Success

Explores how increasing deployment frequency, stable environments, and fast feedback loops improve software delivery, reduce time to market, and align with business goals.
Practices

Metrics and Reports

Discover more about Metrics and Reports and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
Videos

Embracing Automation: The Key to Transforming Your Development Process and Boosting Confidence

Explores how automation in testing, deployment, and validation streamlines development, reduces technical debt, and builds confidence for teams and customers alike.
Blog

Deciphering the Enigma of Story Points Across Teams

Explains why Story Points are subjective and unsuitable for comparing teams, and highlights objective metrics like throughput and value for measuring and improving team performance.
Blog

Work can flow across the Sprint boundary

Explains how allowing work to flow across Sprint boundaries in Scrum can improve team throughput, as long as the Sprint Goal and Definition of Done are maintained.
Videos

Avoiding Agile Banditry: Why Story Points and Velocity Are Misleading Metrics

Explains why story points and velocity can mislead Agile teams, and recommends focusing on throughput, cycle time, and customer value for effective performance measurement.
Videos

Why Limiting Work in Progress is Key to Success in Kanban

Limiting work in progress in Kanban helps teams focus, spot bottlenecks, maintain quality, and deliver value efficiently by ensuring a sustainable, manageable workflow.
Videos

My journey with Kanban and why I actively recommend it to clients.

Explains how adopting Kanban improves workflow, predictability, and transparency for any team or industry, offering practical insights and benefits over traditional approaches.
Videos

Does Kanban integrate into a Scrum environment?

Explains how Kanban can be integrated with Scrum to improve workflow visibility, provide key metrics, and enable continuous improvement in agile teams.
Blog

Blocked Columns on Kanban Boards Obfuscate Workflow and Undermine Effectiveness

Using Blocked columns on Kanban boards hides workflow issues, causes task stagnation, and reduces transparency. Use tags to indicate blockages and maintain clarity.
Videos

Why is Kanban such a popular approach for people in creative industries?

Explains how Kanban helps creative teams organise workflows, reduce chaos, prioritise tasks, and improve efficiency without stifling creativity, using real-world examples.
Tags

Value Stream Management

A strategic approach to improving the flow of value through an organisation, optimising efficiency, reducing waste, and aligning work with customer outcomes.
Course

Applying Metrics for Predictability

Join our immersive 8-week course to become an expert in agile metrics and forecasting. Gain the skills to predict project outcomes, reduce uncertainty, and improve your decision-making, all while learning at your own pace.
Course

Professional Scrum with Kanban (PSK) with Certification

Professional ScrumTM with Kanban (PSK) is a 2-day course that teaches Scrum practitioners how to apply Kanban practices to their work. Through theory, case studies, and hands-on exercises, participants will understand the importance of transparency and flow as it pertains to the Scrum framework."
Course

Applying Professional Kanban (APK) Course with Certification

Revolutionize Your Team’s Performance with Kanban: Join our Immersion Training Course for a deep, practical dive into Kanban principles, designed to seamlessly integrate into your work life and foster continuous improvement and real-world application. Transform the way you deliver value today!
Course

Practicing Kanban Using Azure Boards

All software development teams aim to enhance flow and throughput. This one-day course combines Kanban principles with Azure Boards, showing agile teams how to configure and effectively use the platform for Kanban practices. Participants will collaborate in teams on a shared project and case study to maximize learning.

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