Flow: where work piles up

A cumulative flow diagram shows how many cards sat in each column day by day, with one line that says what the picture means.

In short

The Flow diagram shows, day by day, how many cards sat in each column. A band that gets thicker is where work piles up. One line above the diagram says what the picture means in words.

Before you start

Who: anyone who can open the board.
Plan: every plan, with nothing to set up.
Defaults: the diagram opens on 30 days. Choose 14, 30, 60 or 90.

Steps

Open the board, choose "Insights" in its … menu and open the "Flow" tab.
Choose 14, 30, 60 or 90 days.
Read the line above the diagram, then the bands.

Result: for example, "Work in progress grew from 4 to 9, most of it in Review. More is being started than finished."

Good to know

Each band is a column: done at the bottom, the columns where work is under way in the middle, waiting work on top. The last point is now.
The diagram is read from where each card has been, so it is there for every board from its first card, with nothing to set up.
A deleted card counts until the day it was deleted; a removed column is still drawn for the days cards sat in it.
Which columns count as waiting, in work or done follows the board's columns and where work starts. See /help/boards/board-pulse.
Burnup in points and velocity are shown per cycle in Planner.

If something goes wrong

The done band is empty although cards are in the last column: that column is not marked "Finished here". Open its menu under Board settings › "Columns" and choose "Mark as finished here".