Analyze your throughput distribution. Evaluate your team capability. Identify your performance trends.
Throughput measures the rate you finish work during a specific time frame. The Throughput Histogram shows the shape of your throughput frequency distribution. It reveals basic information about your dataset, such as the median value, the width of spread and the overall distribution of your completed work.
Tracking throughput using the Throughput Histogram enables you to assess your team capacity to deliver results.
With the Throughput Histogram, you can assess your team performance by evaluating the average number of tasks that were completed in a day, week or month.
Your average throughput is a representation of your capability to deliver. In a dataset with a number of outlier values, the mean will be skewed up or down. In this case, use the median value to assess your team’s performance.
In the Throughput Histogram, you have the ability to exclude the appearance of zero values due to non-work days – such as weekends, public holidays, vacations etc.
It is useful to be aware of the average throughput calculated both with and without weekend values. Including the weekend lows give you an accurate throughput value to calculate over longer periods of time while leaving them out will give you a more accurate throughput average for a typical business day.
The percentile lines represent your past performance data. You can use them to define the number of tasks you can commit to on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and the probability that comes with that commitment being met.
Use your throughput performance metrics as a basis for any short term commitments. Remember, every forecast comes with the certainty level of that goal being achieved.
The ‘Throughput Averages’ widget shows your throughput mean, median and mode values to help you identify the trends in your team delivery rates over time. Ideally, the lines should increase smoothly and stay close to each other.
Choose your average and watch its line profile! Decreasing gradients means that your team is delivering less value. Make sure you have WIP limits in place to prevent bottlenecks and let the work flow smoothly.