In the software development sector, growth is related to producing software at a faster speed. In the software development industry everyone from a developer to an engineering manager wants to deploy software faster, write code in a better way, and provide users with greater value.
A crucial element of Agile software development involves concentrating on appropriate measurements. It is your responsibility as an engineering team leader to continuously enhance the productivity of your team. Cycle time against lead time is one of the two most important velocity indicators to track and assess when it comes to speeding up the software delivery process.
In order to minimize and maximize these two velocity metrics, it's as vital to have an overview of them as it is to comprehend the subtle differences between Lead Time and Cycle Time.
In this article, we’ll talk about the differences between lead time and cycle time, also we’ll understand why is it important to measure both, how to optimize the development process, etc.
Let us first begin by understanding What is Lead Time?
The phrase "lead time" originates from the "Toyota Production System" manufacturing technique. It determines the amount of time that passes between a customer's order placement and the order's shipment and receipt.
Lead Time for Changes is unique to the development of software. It's a velocity DORA statistic that calculates how long it takes to apply, test, and distribute codebase changes. The time interval between committing and delivering the code to production processes is measured by this statistic.
Stated differently, Lead Time for Changes measures the amount of time that passes between a requirement's identification and fulfillment. Put simply, it serves as a gauge for the estimated time needed to complete a feature request from a client.
Now, let us understand how to calculate Lead time in a software development project?
To identify bottlenecks and evaluate areas for improvement, there are two methods for calculating lead time for modifications vs cycle time.
Asking your developers about their typical Lead Time for Changes, manually monitoring Jira statuses, generating reports, and organizing daily standups are all part of the traditional approach. This method collects all the data needed to get a comprehensive picture.
The next step in calculating Lead Time for Changes is to compare the start and end times of each revision with the deployment pipeline's final action. You can only assume that this is an inaccurate and prone to error process in addition to being exhausting.
Now, moving ahead let us understand What is Cycle Time?
Cycle time is a crucial strategic tool for project management and a velocity parameter in the manufacturing industry. The amount of time an engineering team needs to complete a project is measured by actual cycle time. In short, it shows how long a feature takes to produce from the point of readiness for shipping.
It serves as a gauge of the velocity of development processes, demonstrating the speed at which an engineering team can complete a project and turn it around for a client. It all boils down to how quickly the team develops.
As an engineering manager, you are most likely already measuring your development pipeline and using DevOps KPIs to help you with budgeting and purchasing decisions.
You must know your production time and the quantity of a product or feature produced during this period in order to calculate the real cycle time. By dividing the total production time by the number of units produced, target cycle time is computed.
The duration of time between active production tasks, or the time when production was interrupted, must also be taken into account.
Now, moving ahead, let us understand the main difference between Lead time and Cycle time.
Lead Time for Changes and Cycle Time differ primarily in that Lead Time is calculated from the standpoint of the client, while Cycle Time is calculated from the perspective of the internal process.
Cycle Time does not have a Lead Time for Changes, but Lead Time for Changes depends on and contains Cycle Time.
Cycle Time is the amount of time needed to finish the production process, whereas Lead Time for Changes is the amount of time from the moment the order is received until it is delivered.
The units in which Lead Time for Changes and Cycle Time are measured are another important distinction. Cycle Time is expressed as time per unit, process, or job, whereas Lead Time is expressed as elapsed time (weeks, hours, or seconds).
Aspects | Lead Time | Cycle Time |
Definition | The total time from initiating a task to completing development and deployment | The duration to finish a complete development cycle, from requirements to deployment |
Includes | Requirements, design, coding, testing, integration, deployment | Coding, testing, integration of a single feature/story |
Example | New feature request to feature live in production | Coding, testing, integration, deploying a single user story |
Goal | Minimize lead time from concept to customer delivery | Optimize cycle to deploy smaller features more rapidly |
Now, going ahead, let us understand what are a few tools to measure Lead time and Cycle time
It is an efficient project management tool which is widely used for Agile development. BY Jira, developers can get detailed insights about Lead time and cycle time through a number of built-in reports and custom dashboards.
Lead time measurement: Tracking the time from issue creation to resolution by leveraging “Average Age” report to create customized dashboards with a few specific filters.
Cycle time management: By using “Control chart” organizations can create visualization that shows time taken for issues to move from one stage of the workflow to another stage.
It is a simple yet an effective project management tool which can be used to measure lead time and cycle time with the Power-Ups like Butler or any other third-party tool.
Lead Time measurement: By Using Trello’s built-in “Card-Aging” power up you can visualize how long cards have been on the board, thus indicating the amount of lead time.
Cycle Time Management: Integrating a tool like Butler can help you automate tracking and reporting on the time cards spent in some specific lists, thus presenting the stages of workflows.
Azure DevOps offers efficient tools to manage software development projects and include features to calculate lead time and cycle time.
Lead Time Management: By using “Analytic view” and “Dashboards” can help you design customized queries and charts which track the time from work item creation to completion.
Cycle Time Management: USe “Cycle Time” widget on dashboards to calculate the time taken to perform the work items to move from active development to done.
It is an all in one DevOps platform, which provides powerful analytics to track development metrics, including lead time and cycle time.
Lead time management: To obtain a good view of lead time, trace the duration from issue generation to code deployment using "Value Stream Analytics".
Cycle Time Measurement: To determine how long each stage of the development process takes, from coding to deployment, examine the "Cycle Time" report.
It is a famous continuous integration and continuous delivery tool which can be used to calculate lead time and cycle time by using an extensive plugin ecosystem.
Lead Time Management: Create custom dashboards that display data on the duration from task creation to deployment by integrating with technologies such as GitLab or JIRA.
Cycle Time Management: Track the amount of time needed for each build step, from code commit to production deployment, by using plugins such as "Build Pipeline" or "Delivery Pipeline."
Now, moving ahead let us understand the Importance of Measuring Lead Time Changes for Changes and Cycle Time ins Software Development
The comparison of Lead Time for Changes and Cycle Time is a crucial velocity indicator in DevOps that can aid engineering managers in comprehending the workings of their team.
These measurements shed light on the connection between an order's placement and fulfillment. They also serve as a reliable gauge of the value your technical team can provide to your clients.
Software Engineering managers can determine the average time it takes for their customers to get orders by evaluating Lead Time for Changes. Customer happiness and the general user experience may suffer if the lead time is excessive.
Moreover, they can assess the overall effectiveness of their production unit by looking at Cycle Time. They are able to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks that could cause delays by using this information.
Since consumers place a high value on lead time for changes and cycle time, reducing these times would boost output, save expenses, and improve efficiency. In a cutthroat market like the software development industry, you have to make sure that your clients get high-quality goods and services as quickly as feasible.
Now, lastly let us understand Why should you measure both Lead and Cycle Time?
Knowing Lead time and cycle time is important to increase the efficiency of the business functions and software development. Despite the fact that these phrases are occasionally used synonymously, they serve different functions.
Below are some main reasons for why companies ought to keep an eye on cycle time and lead metrics:
Identifies Inefficiencies: A longer lead time would mean delay and stalls, while an extended cycle time would signal in wasted steps. Measuring both of them would help you encounter process inefficiencies.
Enables a continuous improvement: By using lead and cycle time metrics as measures would enable business managers to quantify improvements over time.
Reduced Time-to-market: By optimizing lead time and cycle time organizations can deliver products and features faster, thus improving time-to-market.
Increasing accountability: Measuring cycle time would keep product teams conscious of their development velocity and accountable for release planning.
Now, lastly, let us understand how can Acquaint Softtech help?
Software development outsourcing and IT staff augmentation are two services provided by Acquaint Softtech, an IT outsourcing company. As an official Laravel partner, we take great pride in using the Laravel framework to create new applications.
Acquaint Softtech is the best choice if your business is looking to hire remote developers. With our accelerated onboarding process, developers can join your existing team in as little as 48 hours.
Because of our $15 hourly fee, we are also the best choice for any kind of outsourced software development task. We can assist you to hire remote developers, hire MEAN stack developers, hire MERN stack developers, and outsourced development services to meet your needs for specialized development.
Efficiently managing Lead Time and Cycle Time is essential in optimizing software delivery, enhancing customer satisfaction, and maintaining a competitive edge in the software development industry. By understanding and applying strategic measurements, teams can identify inefficiencies, streamline processes, and improve productivity.
Tools like Jira, Trello, and Azure DevOps play a pivotal role in monitoring these metrics, allowing teams to make data-driven decisions. Acquaint Softtech, with its expert remote developers and robust framework capabilities, is perfectly equipped to help businesses achieve optimal cycle and lead times, ensuring timely and cost-effective software solutions.
Lead Time measures the time from customer order to delivery, focusing on the client's perspective, while Cycle Time measures the time taken to complete the production process, focusing on internal operations.
Measuring both provides insights into process efficiency and customer satisfaction, helping identify delays and inefficiencies, thus facilitating continuous improvement and faster time-to-market.
Jira offers tools like the "Average Age" report and "Control Chart" to track and visualize the time taken from issue creation to resolution and the progress of issues through the workflow stages, respectively.
Yes, outsourcing to specialized service providers like Acquaint Softtech can reduce both Lead Time and Cycle Time by integrating expert remote developers who streamline development processes.
Tools recommended include Jira for comprehensive tracking, Trello for simple visual management, Azure DevOps for detailed analytics, GitLab for DevOps insights, and Jenkins for continuous integration and delivery tracking.
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