DORA metrics: Lead and Cycle times
Accelerate fairly convincingly demonstrated very high correlation between a small set of metrics (aka “DORA” metrics) and high performing teams. One of these metrics is “Lead Time,” the time span between the ask and the delivery.
However, in practice, Lead Time isn’t the easiest metric to define and acquire, even with a cross-functional team containing a product manager and possibly a designer. One of the big difficulties I’ve found is when the metrics are limited to engineering-only. How then to define Lead Time?
Recently I came across the notion of Cycle Time, which is really helpful as it’s limited to the implementation aspect. Succinctly:
- Lead Time: time span between customer ask and implementation delivered to production.
- Cycle Time: time span between engineering starts the implementation and delivery to production.
Here’s a spiffy graphic:
There’s more…
Shortening Cycle Time is easy: simply reduce the amount Work In Progress measured by number of stories, or size of stories, or both.
It gets even better: with no stories, Cycle Time is 0!
Ok, that’s a little hyperbolic, but the point is clear: WIP controls Cycle Time.
Controlling WIP takes us too far afield for this article.