Lead time
Lead time in agile management
For agile teams working with continuous increment, lead time measures how long a user story or task takes to move across the board from "to do" to "done." It is the most direct flow metric: it does not depend on estimates or story points, but on actual dates.
One of the goals of Lean Software Development is reducing lead time: getting work to the end user sooner by reducing waiting times between phases, backlogs of pending work, and bottlenecks.
Difference from cycle time
In agile management contexts, two related metrics are usually distinguished:
- Lead time: from when the work is requested or committed to until it is delivered.
- Cycle time: from when the work actively begins (it is moved to "in progress") until it is done.
The difference between the two reflects the waiting time before work begins. A high lead time with a low cycle time indicates that tasks wait a long time before anyone starts them; a high cycle time indicates that the work itself takes too long.
Common mistake
Confusing lead time with velocity or with story points. Lead time measures actual elapsed time, not estimated effort. Two stories with the same number of points can have very different lead times if one was blocked for three days before anyone picked it up. Lead time reveals the real experience of the flow; velocity in points reveals the estimated effort committed.
See also
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