In Kanban, Flow Efficiency helps you measure the actual time you have spent on a workitem. So, the efficiency is calculated based on the actual work time measured against the total wait time. Higher the percentage of Flow Efficiency, better and smoother is the process having the ability to turn idea or request into a workable feature.

You can use the Flow Efficiency Analytics in SwiftKanban to analyze the actual productivity time for cards, excluding the Wait Time and Blocked Time.

For example, you can measure the percentage of time spent on the cards that are typically in the In-Progress’ column type against the total time those cards spend on the board.

 

Calculation formula for Flow Efficiency

The calculation of flow efficiency is as follows:

Flow Efficiency in % = Work Time / ( Work Time + Wait Time)

• Work Time = Time spent by a card in the ‘In-Progress’ column types – The time the card was blocked in these columns.
• Wait Time = Blocked Time +Time spent by a card in the ‘Ready’, ‘Completed’ and ‘Done’ Column Type + Backlog Time (If backlog is selected in the filter option)

Flow Efficiency Filter

On the Flow Efficiency page, click the Filter icon on the Side toolbar. Select the following options in the filter pop-up, and click Apply:

• Start and End Date: Select both these dates from the calendar to limit the scope of data.
• Time Period: Snapshot of time (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly and so on) for Flow Efficiency to be rolled on the X-axis of the chart.

Note: If you select the time unit as Weekly, then please remember that the week is considered from Sunday to Saturday.

• Card Type, Size, Priority, and Class of Service: Select the required attribute values based on which you want to plot the chart
• Lane: Select the lanes from the list box for which you want to plot the chart.
• Start and End Column: Select the exact stages for which you want to generate by defining the Start column and End column.

Note: The charts consider the cards that have exited the End column or moved to or beyond Done column type in the date range and also cards that may have skipped the Start Column through the End Column. Flow Efficiency is calculated based on the time the card entered any column in between the Start column and the End column to the time it was moved out of the End column or have moved to or beyond Done column type.

If the End column is tagged as Done column type, then the Flow Efficiency is calculated till the card’s entry into the End column, not based on its exit from the End column.

If you select all or multiple columns for plotting the chart, then the Flow Efficiency is calculated based on the archived cards and any cards that enter into the Done column type or move beyond Done column type.

The Flow Efficiency is a smooth curve joining the non-zero data points. Hover over a data point on the vertical grid for a particular moment on the time line on Y–axis. The Flow Efficiency is shown on the right as a percentage of the time. In the above image, the Flow Efficiency is 44%, indicating that of the total Cycle Time for cards exited in the week 8th April to 14th April, the cards were being worked upon for 44% of the time and 54% of the time the cards were lying idle.