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“Flow metrics (work items view)” dashboard template

Value stream management (VSM) is a business technique that focuses on how an organization’s software development lifecycle (SDLC) is delivering value to its customers. Value streams are a set of steps an organization takes in order to deliver value to its customers, from the initial request to the final delivery of business value. The objective is to view SDLC from the point of view of a customer.

Flow metrics measure how much value is being delivered to the customer through the product’s value streams. It also measures the time it takes to deliver value while identifying any bottlenecks in the end-to-end SDLC.

A work item is a unit of work that delivers value to a customer upon its release. This dashboard shows the following six flow metrics for value stream management analytics:

  • Throughput: The number of work items completed in a set time period

  • Work profile: The proportion of each type of work item delivered in a set time period

  • Lead time: The time from work item creation to completion

  • Cycle time: The elapsed time from when work is started to when it is completed

  • Work in progress: The number of work items that have been started and remain either active or waiting

  • Flow efficiency: The proportion of time that work items are active against their total cycle time

You can filter the entire dashboard by projects, a specific date range, and Jira issue labels.

Flow metric configurations

Before using the dashboard, configure your flow metrics so your Jira issue types are mapped to the flow metrics work items that you have defined for your business process. By mapping Jira issue types to work items, you can view the output of your SDLC process in terms of value being delivered to your customers.

Flow work items to Jira issue types mapping

You can configure four different work items in the dashboard. The default names for each work item are Feature, Defect, Technical debt, and Others. You can change these names at any time by selecting the work item box, providing a new name, then selecting Update.

The pop-up to edit the "Feature" flow work item

Each work item is mapped to a unique set of Jira issue types. Again, the dashboard has default mappings, but you can change these mappings at any time.

The "Feature" flow work item mapping to the "Task", "Story", and "Feature" Jira issue types

Flow work item status to Jira issue status

Map your Jira issue statuses to "In progress" and "Done" statuses for flow work items.

  • In-Progress status mapping: Select the Jira issue statuses that you categorize as in-progress statuses for a flow work item. The available issue statuses in the dropdown belong to the “In progress” status category for Jira issues.

  • Done status mapping: Select the Jira issue statuses that you categorize as done statuses for a flow work item. The available issue statuses in the dropdown belong to the “Done” status category for Jira issues.

  • Active statuses (for flow efficiency): Select the Jira issue statuses to be considered as active statuses once the work has started. Active statuses are a subset of the statuses chosen in “Flow work item In-Progress status mapping” above. Flow efficiency measures the time spent actively working on a work item against the total cycle time.

You can set default values for each of these mappings by editing the settings of each control.

Charts on the dashboard

This dashboard contains the following charts:

Summary

Five single value charts showing the work items completed per month, work items in progress, lead time, cycle time and flow efficiency over the selected date range

Throughput

The number of work items completed over the selected date range

Work profile

The proportion of each work item completed over the selected date range

Lead time

The time (in days) taken from when a work item was created to when it was completed.

If a work item transitions in and out of “Done” status for work items more than once, then the date corresponding to the latest transition into the “Done” status is used. Also, only the work items with the current work item status as “Done” are considered.

Cycle time

The time (in days) when work was started to when it was completed

If a work item transitions in and out of the “In progress” status for work items more than once, then the date corresponding to the first transition into the “In progress” status is used.

If a work item transitions in and out of the “Done” status for work items more than once, then the date corresponding to the latest transition into the “Done” status is used. Also, only the work items with a current status of “Done” are considered.

Work items in progress

The average number of work items in progress over the corresponding one-month period

Flow efficiency

Flow efficiency for each work item over the selected date range

Flow efficiency measures the time spent actively working on a work item against the total cycle time. This chart also shows the overall efficiency across all work items.

Detailed table view

Shows the status transitions for Jira issues.

It shows only issues that are still open at any point during the selected date range. The row limit for the table is 10,000.

You can also filter this data by issue key using the “Dropdown” above the table.

Additional Help