How Flow Works • James Lewis • GOTO 2024

Flow is controlled through occupancy and work process limits - reducing batch sizes and limiting work in progress improves throughput

Queuing theory explains three main types of wait times that impact flow:

• Coordination (waiting on other teams)
• Scheduling/cadence (regular meetings)
• Queues (work waiting to be processed)

Self-service platforms and infrastructure-as-a-service improve flow by removing human bottlenecks and scaling beyond manual processes

Change request boards and approval processes predict low performance according to research - they block work flow for extended periods

Reducing batch sizes can improve throughput by an order of magnitude without adding capacity or utilization, simply by deploying more frequently

Congestion collapse occurs when there is too much work in progress - controlling occupancy through WIP limits helps prevent this

Value stream mapping helps visualize work flow and identify bottlenecks in the system that slow delivery

Team topologies and Conway’s Law influence how work flows through an organization’s structure

Platform engineering teams need product management to avoid becoming bottlenecks themselves

Agent-based modeling and simulation can help predict and improve flow patterns in software delivery