\u201cLead time\u201d is a term borrowed from the manufacturing method known as Lean or Toyota Production System, where it is defined as the time elapsed between a customer placing an order and receiving the product ordered.<\/p>\n
Translated to the software domain, lead time can be described more abstractly as the time elapsed between the identification of a requirement and its fulfillment. Defining a more concrete measurement depends on the situation being examined: for instance, when focusing on the software development process, the \u201clead time\u201d elapsed between the formulation of a\u00a0user story<\/a>\u00a0and that story being used \u201cin production\u201d, that is, by actual users under normal conditions.<\/p>\n Teams opting for the\u00a0kanban<\/a> approach favor this measure, over the better-known\u00a0velocity<\/a>. Instead of aiming at increasing velocity, improvement initiatives intend to reduce lead time.<\/p>\n Some authors make a distinction between \u201clead time\u201d and \u201ccycle time\u201d. The former is a \u201cuser\u2019s point of view\u201d measurement \u2013 the time between a request being made and being fulfilled \u2013 while the latter is from a \u201cdeveloper\u2019s point of view\u201d \u2013 the time between the start of work on a user story and making the feature available for delivery.<\/p>\nAlso Known As<\/h2>\n