Cumulative Flow Diagrams provide a method for tracking progress of agile projects in a "burn up" fashion. Because they plot both the total scope and the progress of individual Features / Stories / Tasks / Functions / Use Cases they communicate absolute progress whilst visually providing a proportional message of total completeness. CFDs also offer us a simple method of tracking work-in-progress and visually analyzing the trend in lead time for delivery of working code. They provide a leading metric which allows teams and managers to react early to growing problems wherever they might appear in the flow between requirements and working code. CFDs provide transparency into the whole lifecycle. Tracking a project with a CFD is a key element in moving to a Lean system for software development.

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