The emergence of Flow Metrics, presented in Dr. Mik Kersten’s the Flow Framework™, arrives at a crucial time. While the need to deliver more value from software is well-documented, there has been no real form of measurement that can tell organizations if their transformational efforts are working — until now. The Flow Metrics—Velocity, Efficiency, Time and Load—provide business and IT leadership with a window into the enigmatic world of software delivery. These business-centric metrics, alongside the measurement of Flow Distribution, provide a common language to make collaborative decisions to accelerate the value delivery of an enterprise’s software portfolio. Together, they can be used to guide your IT organization’s journey from a product-oriented cost centre to a profit-generating product operating model.
Why Flow Metrics?
Previous attempts at measuring software delivery have failed because they’re performance metrics, such as counting the number of lines of code and number of deployments, which represent local activities and optimizations and not directly linked to business outcomes such as revenue, customer responsiveness and retention. So while trillions have been invested in IT, from new tooling and talent to methodologies (Agile, DevOps, SAFe), to costly accompanying training, many businesses and IT leaders lack the means to establish whether the needle is moving in the right direction.
What are Flow Metrics?
By crunching the objective data that is captured from integrated software delivery toolchains—across teams, tools and departments—organizations can generate four clear business-centric metrics to improve cross-organizational decision making, answering crucial business questions such as the following:
- How is your software delivery impacting revenues, quality and costs?
- What’s slowing your value delivery down?
- How are your DevOps, Agile, SAFe transformations performing?
- Where should you strategically invest to improve business outcomes?
These metrics present a new approach to measure software delivery value streams against business outcomes:
- Flow Velocity: Is value delivery accelerating?
- Flow Efficiency: Is work downstream (ideate stage) in a wait state holding up delivery?
- Flow Time: Is time-to-value getting shorter?
- Flow Load: Is demand outweighing capacity?
- Flow Distribution: Is value creation and protection work being prioritized?
Flow Velocity, along with Flow Time, are what Carmen DeArdo calls “the money metrics” — they tell you how much business value you’re delivering, and how quickly. While the money metrics are naturally the most appealing, the supporting metrics—Flow Load and Flow Efficiency— indirectly impact the money metrics:
- Flow Load tells you if your WIP is overloading your teams.
- Flow Efficiency helps you identify where wait states are undermining your Flow Time.
Implementing the Flow Framework – introducing Planview Viz
Designed for the business user, Planview Viz offers a turnkey solution to implement the Flow Framework™. Translate improvements in flow into business impact, increase revenue, reduce cost and improve the quality of happiness of your teams. Learn more from our CEO and founder, Dr. Mik Kesten, on why there is such an overwhelming demand for the product.
Measure what matters in software delivery…
Traditional organizations have no real form of measurement that can tell organizations if investments in their digital transformation are working – until now.
Flow Metrics—from Dr. Mik Kersten’s the Flow Framework™—provide business and IT leadership with a critical window into the enigmatic world of enterprise software delivery.
These business-level metrics provide a common language between business and IT so you can make collaborative decisions around software delivery to achieve innovation velocity.
- Learn more about each Flow Metrics
- Measure what matters in software delivery
- See real-life examples of Flow Metrics in action
- Begin your project to product transformation
Want to learn more about what Flow Metrics can do for you?
Drop us a line for an informal chat with one of our friendly Flow Advisors.
