Decoding the CFD

The Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD). Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Maybe you’ve been told it can help you better understand the flow of work, identify bottlenecks, and get a sense how long work items take to complete. It sounds intriguing, but…how exactly do you read it? What is it trying to tell you? And… Could the CFD be more helpful than a burndown chart?

In this part lecture, part workshop presentation, we’ll take a closer look at what a CFD is, how it’s constructed, and, most importantly, how to interpret what you’re observing. Being able to identify patterns in your CFD is a valuable skill to better understand how work flows across your Scrum or Kanban board. We’ll then examine several common CFD patterns you might see with your teams. We will be addressing 3 key questions: What are you observing? Why might it be happening? and What actions might you suggest for improvement?