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Make sense of queues, work in progress, forecasting, and team capacity. These concepts explain why a busy team can still struggle to finish work.
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158 termsDependency wait
Dependency wait is the elapsed period caused by a required input or action outside the item's current processing step. It is a specific form of queue or blocked time.
Flow and capacity planningDownstream dependency
Downstream dependency is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningEffective capacity
Effective capacity is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningExpedite lane
An expedite lane is a class of service for work whose cost of waiting is unusually high. It is a policy with a small capacity allowance, not a general fast track for every request.
Flow and capacity planningExplicit work policies
Explicit work policies are shared, observable agreements for workflow behavior. They can define entry criteria, WIP limits, service classes, pull rules, blocked handling, and completion conditions.
Flow and capacity planningExternal dependency
External dependency is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningFixed-date item
A fixed-date item is a work item with a meaningful deadline or time window. It is a class of service that may justify different sequencing and forecasting, while still consuming the same constrained capacity.
Flow and capacity planningFlow age
Flow age applies an explicit clock to unfinished work moving through a system. It helps teams focus attention on old items instead of relying only on statistics from completed work.
Flow and capacity planningFlow balance
Flow balance describes whether arrival, WIP, and departure remain broadly aligned under defined policies. Imbalance appears as growing queues, starved stages, or repeated bursts of completed work.
Flow and capacity planningFlow constraint
A flow constraint is a limiting policy, capability, dependency, or resource that reduces effective movement. A constraint can be structural or temporary and may move after an intervention.
Flow and capacity planningFlow control
Flow control includes WIP limits, pull criteria, service classes, queue visibility, and feedback about age and completion. Its purpose is to prevent uncontrolled accumulation while preserving a safe path for work.
Flow and capacity planningFlow distribution
Flow distribution is the spread of elapsed times for work items moving through a delivery process. It shows how often work finishes within different time ranges instead of reducing every item to one average.
Flow and capacity planningFlow efficiency
Flow efficiency is the share of elapsed delivery time spent on active work rather than waiting, handoffs, or queues. It helps teams see whether a slow result comes from implementation effort or from delays around the work.
Flow and capacity planningFlow load
Flow load is the volume of work placed on a workflow, including active and waiting items when the boundary is stated. It describes pressure on the system rather than effort or business value.
Flow and capacity planningFlow metrics
Flow metrics include cycle time, throughput, work item age, queue time, and flow efficiency. Together they describe how work behaves rather than reducing engineering to one activity count.
Flow and capacity planningFlow policy
A flow policy defines the behavior expected at a workflow boundary. It may specify entry criteria, WIP limits, service class handling, blocked work, and completion evidence.
Flow and capacity planningFlow predictability
Flow predictability is the degree to which completed work matches a defined forecast, range, or service expectation over repeated observations. It concerns consistency, not simply speed.
Flow and capacity planningFlow rate
Flow rate is the count of work items that pass a chosen completion boundary per unit of time. It is a throughput measure whose meaning depends on the item population and finish event.
Flow and capacity planningFlow review
A flow review is a structured inspection of work movement, waiting, WIP, and delivery outcomes. Its purpose is to learn where the system is constrained and agree on a small change to test.
Flow and capacity planningFlow time
Flow time is the elapsed interval between a work item's entry into a measured workflow and its completion. It includes active processing and waiting inside the selected boundaries.
Flow and capacity planningForecast confidence
Forecast confidence expresses how strongly available evidence supports a predicted delivery outcome. It should reflect variation, sample quality, work definition, and changes that could invalidate historical patterns.
Flow and capacity planningForecast horizon
A forecast horizon is the interval into the future for which a delivery prediction is intended to be useful. Its length depends on historical variation, work definition, system change, and the decision being supported.
Flow and capacity planningForecast range
Forecast range is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningHandoff delay
Handoff delay is the elapsed time between one participant completing its part of work and the next participant beginning the corresponding action. It is a process delay, not necessarily a sign of individual inactivity.
Flow and capacity planningHistorical cycle time
Historical cycle time is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningHistorical throughput
Historical throughput is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningIdle capacity
Idle capacity is unused capacity under a stated boundary and time window. It can be valuable slack that absorbs variation, or it can signal missing demand, a dependency, or a policy that prevents safe pulling.
Flow and capacity planningImpact effort matrix
Impact effort matrix is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningIntake capacity
Intake capacity is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningItem size
Item size describes the work unit used in flow analysis. It may use changed behavior, files, stories, or another local convention, but comparisons require a consistent definition and awareness of complexity.
Flow and capacity planningIteration planning
Iteration planning is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningKanban board
A Kanban board is a visualization of a workflow that makes work, states, WIP, and movement visible. It can be physical or digital, but the board is useful only when its columns reflect the real system.
Flow and capacity planningKanban system
A Kanban system manages knowledge work by making the workflow and constraints visible, limiting work in progress, pulling work according to capacity, and improving policies through feedback.
Flow and capacity planningLead time
Lead time is the elapsed time between a request entering a workflow and the requested outcome being delivered. In software teams, the start may be prioritization or commitment and the finish may be deployment, so the definition must be stated explicitly.
Flow and capacity planningLead-time distribution
A lead-time distribution shows how elapsed time varies from the chosen demand boundary to the chosen completion boundary. It describes the range and frequency of outcomes rather than one representative average.
Flow and capacity planningMean cycle time
Mean cycle time is calculated by adding the cycle times in a selected population and dividing by the number of items. It can summarize a dataset, but a few long-running items may pull it away from what most work experiences.
Flow and capacity planningMilestone
Milestone is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningMilestone risk
Milestone risk is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningMonte Carlo simulation
Monte Carlo simulation is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningOperational capacity
Operational capacity is the portion of a team's available capability used for support, incidents, maintenance, reliability, releases, and other work required to operate a service. It is part of real capacity even when it is not feature delivery.
Flow and capacity planningOpportunity scoring
Opportunity scoring is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPercentile forecast
Percentile forecast is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPlanned capacity
Planned capacity is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPlanning cadence
Planning cadence is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPlanning horizon
Planning horizon is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPlanning interval
Planning interval is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPortfolio capacity
Portfolio capacity is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPrioritization framework
Prioritization framework is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningPriority class
Priority class is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planningProbabilistic delivery date
Probabilistic delivery date is a concept used in software delivery planning to describe a condition, relationship, estimate, or decision about engineering work.
Flow and capacity planning