Visualize, Analyze, Improve: A Hands-On Guide to CFD Mastery

Topic:

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?

For many, the CFD can provide a deeper understanding of a team’s performance that goes far beyond the traditional burndown chart. Whether you are a Scrum Master, Product Owner, or team member, this session is for anyone who wishes to practice their critical thinking skills.

About our Speaker:
Mark Grove is an Agile Coach and Managing Consultant with Excella in Arlington, VA, and an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Certified Kanban Coach with Kanban University. He has over 25 years in the IT profession with the last 12 years focusing on coaching individuals and teams while leveraging practices from both the Kanban method and Scrum framework. His coaching and mentoring focus on system optimization, value delivery, team dynamics, servant leadership, and the agile mindset to welcome and embrace change. He has developed and delivered numerous interactive training sessions to the general-public and for private engagements and has spoken at several agile conferences and meetups.