📊 Flow Efficiency Explained

🧮 What Is Flow Efficiency?

Flow Efficiency measures how much of the issue’s lifetime was spent in active work compared to waiting time.

It’s a key indicator of delivery health and workflow friction.

A higher efficiency means the task was actively worked on rather than sitting idle in a backlog or queue.

🧪 How It’s Calculated

We use this formula: Flow Efficiency = (Active Time) / (Active Time + Waiting Time) * 100

• Active Time includes time spent in statuses like:

  • In Progress, Developing, Testing, Coding, etc.
    (based on keywords like working, reviewing, designing — see ⚠️ Status Naming: How to Ensure Accurate Reports)

• Waiting Time includes:

  • To Do, Ready, Open, Backlog, etc.

  • AND all Blocked statuses (e.g., Waiting for QA, On Hold)

⏳ Blocked time is a subset of Waiting Time, but highlighted separately for visibility.

✅ Efficiency Status Labels

If Flow Efficiency is below 60%, you’ll see a warning lozenge like this: ⚠️ BELOW 60%

This suggests that your team spent more time waiting than working on the issue — potentially due to blockers, unclear requirements, or overloaded sprints.

📌 Best Practice Tips

• Use Flow Efficiency during retrospectives to reflect on delivery bottlenecks.

• Combine this metric with Blocked Time and Sprint Addition for deeper insights.

• Adjust your workflow/statuses to reduce unnecessary queue time.

🧠 Example Calculation

Suppose:

• Active Time = 2d

• Waiting Time = 1d

Then: Flow Efficiency = 2 / (2 + 1) * 100 = 66.7% → HEALTHY ✅

But if:

• Active Time = 1d

• Waiting Time = 3d

Then: Flow Efficiency = 1 / (1 + 3) * 100 = 25% → BELOW STANDARD ⚠️