User:TCipriani (WMF)/Lead time

Varying definitions of lead time[edit]

Lead time is the time it takes to go from a customer making a request to the request being satisfied. [...] The delivery part of lead time is easier to measure. [...] We measured product delivery lead time as the time it takes to go from code committed to code running in proudction.
– Accelerate (pg. 14, 15)

For the software delivery process, the most important global metric is cycle time. This is the time between deciding that a feature needs to be implemented and having that feature released to users. [...] Focusing on the reduction of cycle time encourages the practices that increase quality.
– Continuous Delivery (pg 138)

While cycle time is the most important metric in software delivery, there are a number of other diagnostics that can warn you of problems. These include

Automated test coverage

Properties of the codebase such as the amount of duplication, cyclomatic complexity, efferent and afferent coupling, style problems, and so on

Number of defects

Velocity, the rate at which your team delivers working, tested, ready for use code

Number of commits to the version control system per day

Number of builds per day

Number of build failures per day

Duration of build, including automated tests

– Continuous Delivery (pg 139)