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- queueing theory: part 1
- A Fulfillment Center is a Queueing System
- On Queueing, Oil Change, and Customer Experience
- Queueing Theory: Part 4
- Emergency Room (ER) Wait Times
- On Time-Traps and Waste
- A Bracket is a Queue
- Software Development is Queue Management
- queueing theory: part 2+
- Staring at Acoustic Ceiling Tiles
- Child Adoption, Queueing, and Waste (Muda)
- Queueing Theory: Part 3
- Little’s Law for Product Development
- Psychology of Queueing & Build-A-Bear Workshop
- Travel Time & Waste
- Call Centers as Queueing Systems
- What is Waste?
- YouTube’s Queueing Properties
- Queueing Theory and Terrorism
- Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
- Psychology of Queueing & Disneyland
- Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
- Queueing Psychology at the Gas Pump
- On Queueing and Elevator Mirrors
- The Variability Tree
- Attitude and the Pyschology of Queueing
- Queue Shapes, Culturally Influenced
- The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, A Queueing Perspective
Little’s Law is an incredibly helpful principle for business. Unfortunately, it is not used enough, or it is poorly understood.
As review,
Little’s Law: For a Queueing (Queuing) System in steady state, the average length L of the queue equals the average arrival rate λ times the average waiting time W.
Or,
L = λW
Put another way,
Total Cycle Time = Number of Things in Process / Average Completion Rate
For example, let’s assume 8 feature request are what a team can consider per month. If 16 features were in the backlog, then it will take the team 60 days to complete.
In other words,
60 Days = 16 features / 8 feature capacity
But, assume that 4 feature request were released, then it will take the team an average of 14 days to complete those features.
So, what does Little’s Law teach us about speed of delivery?
To deliver faster, we can do two things:
- Reduce the size of work in process (things in process)
- Increase the average completion rate
That’s it. When reduced to the physics of Queueing, those are the two variables that are drivers of speed.
Other Applications of Little’s Law
How else might you apply Little’s Law? Would Little’s Law be helpful in your work? How?
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