Cumulative flow diagram (CFD)
Understanding the Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)
The Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) tracks the progress of the team's work items according to their status. Every work item is tagged with a particular status in the sprint board, and the CFD represents the progress of each status.
The number of work items in your To Do list will not be altered unless a work item has been added or deleted. It will always show the number of work items that have passed through it.
Here's a small example of how this report works.
Let us assume a sprint started with 5 items in the initial status "To do" on Jan 1st. The CFD report will show 5 work items in To Do, 0 work items in In Progress, and 0 work items in Done.
The behavior of the cumulative chart is such that the graph plotted on a particular day will reflect the values of the previous day. So, the initial values on Jan 2nd will be 5 items in To do, 0 items in In progress and 0 items in Done. If 2 work items are moved to In Progress on Jan 2nd, the CFD graph for Jan 2 will display 5 work items in To Do (because, cumulatively, 5 items have been through the To do status), 2 work items in In Progress (because 2 items have been moved to In progress on that day), and 0 work items in Done (because as of 2nd no work items have been moved to Done).
On Jan 3rd, if 1 work item is moved from In Progress to Done status, the CFD will show 5 items in To Do (cumulative value for To Do status), 2 items in In Progress status (cumulative value for In Progress), and 1 item in Done (because 1 item has been moved to Done status as on that day).
On Jan 4, if the 1 work item in Done status is moved back to To Do status, the CFD will remove that one item from Done and In Progress statuses, resetting its course back to the initial status. The number of items in To Do will remain the same because no new work items have been added. Therefore, the CFD will show To Do = 5, In Progress = 1, Done = 0.
Note: Since CFD reports produce graphs based on the values from the previous day, the latest updates might not reflect instantly. Click the "Refresh Now" button for the updated report values.
Benefits
- Track the progress of each status on a daily basis.
- Know which status holds the most work items.
- Work to move items from To-do to Done.
- Identify bottlenecks that slow down the progress of the sprint.
View the chart
- Navigate to Report module.
- Select View by as Sprints Reports.
- Select Sprint type as Cumulative Flow.
- Select a sprint and the status to be viewed.
- The X-axis represents the Date, and Y-axis represents the Number of work items.
- The legends show the statuses of the sprint's work items.
Compare status
You can compare the progress of the statuses on the board using CFD.
- Click Compare in the upper-right corner.
- Select the statuses.
- Click Apply to compare the progress of the statuses.
You can compare a maximum of five statuses and a minimum of two.
View the table to track the days and count of work items in each status. Click the date or the item count in any status to view the list of all the work items and the estimation points against each. You will get to know which status holds the most work items.
Only the Workspace Owner, Admin can view all the sprints. If you are the Manager or Member you can access the CFD only for the sprints you are assigned.