How to measure Lead Time

"I want to start tracking Lead Time; how do I do that?"

💡 Ideally, measure the span of time between "I promise" (commitment) and "here it is" (delivery to the customer's hands). 

This is "Customer Lead Time": the lead time as perceived by those whose needs will be satisfied by your work and often the critical criteria they will use to evaluate our performance.

💪 Often those two moments are outside our span of visibility. Or include waiting stages we can't control. In cases like those, you can also measure the interval between making a "commitment to start" and declaring work "done" (ready to move to a next stage outside our span of control). We call that the (Delivery) System Lead Time.

👀 Ultimately, to get started you just measure time "from somewhere to somewhere", and study the results to adjust the measurement. Just keep in mind that the farther away you measure respect to "I promise" and "here it is", the more "local" your measurement is, and the less relevant it is as a measurement of fitness in the eyes of your customers/stakeholders. Work slowly over time to expand your line of sight and span of control.