Each of these phases will have its own lead time. In many cases, deliverables will need to pass through several levels of approval before getting to the tracking and implementation stages. Lead time at the final review point comes after the project work is completed. Lead time will revolve around the plan that has been created, which lists out deadlines, milestones and deliverables, along with a realistic time frame for completion. Once a plan has been created and team members have been assigned, it’s time for the actual project work. Lead time in these instances will look at how long it takes to choose the right people for each piece of the project, assigning tasks to these individuals and providing clear direction about the scope of work. Project managers can accomplish target goals and divide work up equally among team members through delegation.

Shorter lead times typically indicate business processes that are flexible and can find resolutions more quickly than those with longer lead times. Lead time can also demonstrate not only the efficiency of certain processes, but also how adaptable they are. When businesses know the lead time of their most common processes, managers can examine those numbers to determine how productive their current system is, as well as if it might be possible to streamline any operations. While lead time measures the entire process, cycle time analyzes those areas of the process where team members are actively engaging in the work. Cycle time differs because it serves as a subset of lead time, since it’s contained within the larger project picture. Lead and cycle time are both helpful measures that can be used in project management to track progress and determine time spent on various stages. Once a task is considered “in progress,” cycle time begins and continues until the completion of that task.

What Is Cycle Time?Ĭycle time is different from lead time, in that it measures the time spent working on a single, often prioritized, task. In project management, measuring lead times is a way to see how much time was required for project completion, and lag time is a way to see how much time was lost to delays. Lead times illustrate the overall time that is saved, while lag time shows the waiting periods that are happening during those process pauses along that way.

With any project, delays are inevitable, since the completion of tasks is almost always dependent on other factors. When used together, lead and lag time can assist in creating buffer time between tasks, which can be helpful in managing and potentially reducing risks. Lag time measures the delay in how far something is “lagging” behind schedule.Ī variety of causes factor into the occurrence of lag time, including lack of resources, waiting on approvals, glitches in a system or simply poor planning. While lead time is the time from beginning to end of a project, lag time represents the amount of time that passes between when a project starts and when work on the project actually begins.

Lead time calc