Flow Metrics Resources
Flow Metrics can be used to help better forecast your sprints and give you greater confidence in your estimates. Below are some of the resources you can use to help get you started on your journey:
Books
Daniel Vacanti's book, When Will It Be Done? is the definitive source on Flow Metrics. It provided the foundation for my talk and is extremely valuable for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Flow Metrics. The book includes a step-by-step guide for implementing Flow Metrics within your team and delves much deeper into the topics covered in my talk.
This free ebook by Daniel Vacanti and Will Steele covers the fundamentals and provides an excellent foundation on Flow Metrics. It also offers practical guidance on how to implement and use Flow Metrics within your team. It's an invaluable resource that everyone should check out, especially for being free.
The Flaw of Averages
by Sam L. Savage
Sam Savage’s The Flaw of Averages explores the pitfalls of using averages for forecasting and suggests other methods that we should use instead. While it's an interesting read, it's not crucial for implementing Flow Metrics within your team.
Tools
While you could attempt to create basic graphs and run Monte Carlo simulations in Excel, the Actionable Agile Analytics too, which is created by Daniel Vacanti's company, offers comprehensive views of standard charts like Ageing WIP and Scatterplots. It also provides extensive additional information, allowing you to verify if you are adhering to the assumptions of Little's Law and identify any issues in your process.
For those concerned about data privacy, the tool pulls all information from Jira/DevOps and processes it on your browser, ensuring no data is stored on their servers (Only licensing information is stored on their side). They also provide videos on using the product and how to use the various charts and graphs, which can be found here:
Actionable Agile Analytics Playlist
Presentation Slides
For those of you that wanted the presentation deck, I have uploaded it them to SpeakDeck.
Lastly, if you have any constructive feedback on my talk and how I could improve it, I would love to hear about it.
Until next time...keep learning!