Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

Correct Answer: Work is piling up in the 'ToDo' phase, it is likely a symptom of an overburdened system

The Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is a visual tool in Agile and especially Scrum. It helps the team to understand the flow of work and identify potential bottlenecks. If the s breadth between 'To Do' and 'Doing' is expanding while the breadth between 'Doing' and 'Done' is narrowing, this indicates that more tasks are entering the 'To Do' phase and fewer tasks are being moved to 'Done'. Hence, the answer 'Work is piling up in the 'ToDo' phase, it is likely a symptom of an overburdened system' is correct. Other interpretations like 'The team is effectively managing their work'- is incorrect, because the doing to done phase is decreasing, showing reduced effectiveness. 'The team is procrastinating and does not start the tasks' is not necessarily correct as the issue might not be with 'starting' the tasks, it could be the 'completion' of tasks. And finally, 'It is a positive sign, as more tasks are getting in the 'Doing' phase' is not correct, because the increasing tasks in the 'Doing' phase is a problem and not a positive sign as it shows that tasks are not getting completed and moving onto the 'Done' phase.

Correct Answer: The Development team might not be producing as much work ready for testing. An investigation is needed to identify any potential problems.

The cumulative flow diagram (CFD) is a visual tracking tool in Scrum and it visualizes the progress of work in various states (e.g., Backlog, In Progress, Testing, Done) over time. When the 'Ready for Testing' band is significantly thinner in the CFD as compared to previous sprints, it indicates that less work is ready for testing. This may point to a problem in the Dev team's productivity or issues with the input quality of work that is ready for testing, which is why the answer 'The Development team might not be producing as much work ready for testing. An investigation is needed to identify any potential problems.' is correct The answer 'The Testing team is performing very efficiently.' is incorrect because a thinner 'Ready for Testing' band does not provide any information about the Testing team's efficiency. It merely reflects the amount of work that is ready to be tested The answer 'The project is coming to an end.' is also incorrect because a thin 'Ready for Testing' band is not a reliable indicator of the project nearing its end. It merely reflects a decrease in testing workload for the current sprint The answer 'Work is not correctly recorded on the diagram.' could be possible, but it is not the most likely conclusion without additional indicators of inaccurate tracking.

Correct Answer: The team is actively managing the work-in-progress and pulling new work when they finish with the old ones

In a Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD), multiple dips in the 'In Progress' section usually indicate frequent changes in the cycle. This is likely due to the team effectively managing their work-in-progress; they are pulling in new work as they complete old tasks, which explains the pattern. This aligns with the principle of 'Limiting Work in Progress' followed in agile methodologies, including Scrum. On the other hand, the other potential answers do not reflect the direct impact on the 'In Progress' trend in a CFD, rendering them incorrect: (1) Undefined product backlog items mostly cause starting problem for tasks rather than affecting 'In Progress' items. (2) A lack of resources would likely increase 'In Progress' work, not cause intermittent dips. (3) Not following Scrum roles and responsibilities would more likely result in a chaotic CFD rather than one with frequent dips in the 'In Progress' section.