Tracking lead time can also help identify blockers when transforming a customer need into a finished task. By monitoring the lead time of individual customer requests, teams can more easily identify these bottlenecks to continuously improve efficiency.
To track lead time, agile teams start the clock when they receive a customer request and create a user story in a shared project management platform. Once all the agreed-upon acceptance criteria are met and the request is complete, the clock stops.
What’s the difference between lead time and cycle time?
Lead time tracks the duration of time between a customer request and its completion. This measurement helps teams boost efficiency in their workflow and determine how long a customer needs to wait for their request to be fulfilled, such as when a customer makes a purchase and waits for it to be delivered.
On the other hand, cycle time tracks the duration of time spent actively working on a task. The clock starts when the item is in progress and stops when the piece of work is completed. This measurement helps teams determine how to boost efficiency in their workflow.
Example
A development team noticed their customer-requested feature updates were starting to fall behind. Reaching their deadlines became increasingly challenging. To find out what was slowing their value delivery down, they began tracking lead time.
Over time, they discovered that while development progressed quickly, work frequently stalled in the review and testing stages. This information helped them implement tactics to streamline these stages in the process, such as testing features earlier and setting time limits for reviews.
By tracking lead time, the team identified and resolved blockers, enabling them to deliver value to their customers more quickly.
Want to learn more about how to take a value-driven approach to your work? Explore the Agile Fundamentals certification course to get started.
