Metrics Framework for Cycle-Time Reduction in Software Value Creation

Agile software development methodologies driving cycle-time reduction have been shown to improve efficiency, enable shorter lead times and place a stronger focus on customer needs. They are also moving the process development focus from cost-reduction towards value creation. Optimizing software development based on lean and agile principles requires tools and metrics to optimize against. We need a new set of metrics that measure the process up to the point of customer use and feedback. With these we can drive cycle time reduction and improve value focus. Recently the lean startup methodology has been promoting a similar approach within the startup context. In this paper, we develop and validate a cycle-time-based metric framework in the context of the software feature development process and provide the basis for fast feedback from customers. We report results on applying three metrics from the framework to improve the cycle-time of the development of features for a SaaS service.