Agile for Humans with Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller FYK: Kanban Metric Essentials - Cycle Time
May 20, 2021
Kanban experts Daniel Vacanti, Todd Miller, and Ryan Ripley discuss the importance of measuring cycle time in Kanban and how it helps deliver value faster. They also emphasize the significance of feedback, setting boundaries, and making organizational changes to improve the system and achieve faster customer feedback.
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Hosts Joke Then Define Cycle Time With A Stopwatch
- Daniel jokes about the hosts wearing the same clothes and then defines cycle time simply as elapsed time between start and finish.
- This light moment precedes his clear, concrete stopwatch metaphor for measuring cycle time.
Cycle Time Is Elapsed Time Customers Care About
- Cycle time is the total elapsed time between a defined start and end point for an item.
- Dan emphasizes using raw elapsed time (no weekends/holidays removed) because that's how customers experience delivery.
Explicitly Define Finished As Customer Delivery
- Define explicit start and finish points for measurement and align 'finished' with whoever your customer is.
- Ryan and Dan warn that 'finished' can be misleading if it just hands work downstream; make the customer the finish when possible.