Flow Metrics That Leaders Trust

If you can’t see flow, you can’t manage it. Three measures are enough to change decisions: lead time, work in progress, and throughput.
Lead time shows how long it takes to turn a request into something a customer can use. Measure it from when the team starts the work, not when the ticket was created six months ago.
WIP is the count of items actively being worked. Too much WIP stretches people thin and delays everything.
Throughput is how many items you finish per time period. Don’t average forever—use rolling windows so trends stay fresh.

How to use them together

• If lead time is high and WIP is high, stop starting. Finish what you’ve begun.
• If throughput is flat but WIP keeps growing, you’re stacking debt. Cut intake.
• If lead time spikes after each release, examine your deployment process, not your developers.

Make it visible

A single page with these three metrics, by team, updated weekly. Add simple targets and annotate significant events. Patterns emerge quickly.What not to do

• Don’t tie metrics to individual bonuses; you’ll get gaming.
• Don’t turn them into a checklist; use them to spark better conversations.