Lead Time in Scrum

What Is Lead Time in Scrum?

Lead time is the total time from the moment when a product backlog item is identified to the moment that it is delivered. In other words, lead time is the amount of time that elapses between a customer placing an order and receiving the product. 

In Scrum, lead time is defined as the elapsed time between when a user story is created and when it is delivered to the customer. Lead time includes all aspects of creating and delivering a user story, such as development, testing, and integration. 

The lead time for a user story can be affected by many factors, such as the size of the team, the complexity of the user story, and the availability of resources.

What Does Lead Time Tell You?

In Scrum, lead time is used to measure the amount of time it takes to complete a Sprint, from the moment a user story is added to the Sprint backlog until the story is completed and accepted by the Product Owner. 

Lead time can be used to help identify areas of improvement in the Scrum process, as well as to predict how long it will take to complete future Sprints. Lead time is an important metric for businesses to track, as it can give insight into how efficient their operations are. Lead time can also be used to measure customer satisfaction, as shorter lead times generally result in happier customers.

Conclusion

Scrum teams often use their lead time to track their progress and performance. By tracking the metric, scrum teams can understand how efficient they are and identify areas for improvement. 

If you want to learn more about measuring lead time or improving your Scrum process, GoRetro is here to help. We offer an online platform that makes it easy to track Scrum metrics, get feedback from team members, and retro on your processes.