How to Optimize Cycle Time Software Development Teams

The efficiency and performance of software development teams improve every aspect of software creation and deployment. It allows for the delivery of high-quality products that satisfy users' and stakeholders’ needs. An optimized Cycle Time makes this possible, but that does not happen by accident.

When you measure Cycle Time accurately and take smart steps to improve it, your organization moves ahead of the competition, improving performance, and reduces any future issues at the same time. Speed never works without a strategy, so Software Engineering Intelligence Platforms (SEIPs) like Waydev help make this possible.

What is Cycle Time?

Cycle time represents the total time it takes to complete one cycle of a process or one task from start to finish. It is a highly important metric in various industries, like software development, manufacturing, and service delivery. Measuring cycle time is crucial as it allows companies to identify work blockages and improve overall productivity.

What is Cycle Time in Software Development?

Simply put, Cycle Time is the entire length of time from the software development start to the final deliverable product is done and delivered. SEIPs like Waydev measure Cycle Time from the first commit up until deployment, and it’s the best indicator of a team’s velocity.

Cycle Time Focuses on Optimized Development Efficiency

How fast can you get this done? Whether your customer is talking about an entire custom software system or an updated feature on an in-use application, this is commonly one of the first questions they ask.

You need to focus on a different, more complex question. How fast can you get this done while meeting all necessary and desired KPIs, avoiding bugs, and maximizing customer satisfaction? Measuring Cycle Time will give you just this answer; while also helping you spot any bottlenecks along the way, all for a smooth delivery process.

What Factors Affect the Cycle Time in Software Development?

A multitude of internal and external things affect the delivery process, from start to finish. Here are some things you can zoom into:

1 – Project Complexity

Obviously, the more complex a piece of software, the longer it will take to complete it. This is especially true if the customer changes their mind, demands more features mid-development, or needs full integration with an existing system. If the project is very complex, then also expect a higher cycle time.

2 – Available Tools and Automation

Waydev and SEIPs analyze data throughout the software creation process and provide important insights into everything from how well the team works together to each stage of the software development process. The more efficient and functional tools you have at your disposal, the quicker the cycle time will be. Engineering leaders can use them to make smart, data-driven decisions that reduce speedbumps and optimize results.

3 – Team Collaboration

In-house talent should have the skills and comfort levels to work seamlessly together. If your organization outsources some or part of your software engineering projects, you must ensure that everyone can communicate clearly. This greatly reduces wasted time, misalignments of effort, and increases the speed of solving problems and getting things done within the deadline.

Efficiency boosts speed. Well-defined and optimized processes every step of the way lead to a much shorter cycle time overall.

How to Measure and Reduce Cycle Time

No matter what software development framework and project management tools your organization uses, you need a set way to measure every part of the process accurately. This frequently involves splitting projects into to-do lists, in-progress activities, review steps, and completed work. Depending on the software's needs, these strategies may be quite simple or highly complex, multi-faceted.

Here are some strategies to minimize the Cycle Time:

Established strategies or bespoke systems can work for various projects and management styles. Some include:

• Automation – the more you can automate, the less time and workforce it takes.
• Lean practices – minimize waste throughout the project development process.
• Agile development – use Agile to keep the team on point and efficient.
• Continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD) – ongoing integration and updates for code, etc.

A Closer Look at Cycle Time Optimization

The end goal always involves making Cycle Time as short as possible without compromising the quality of the final delivery. This ensures maximum usability and customer satisfaction. Using Waydev and other SEIPs such as Jellyfish, Code Climate Velocity, GetDX and LinearB makes this a much easier and error-proof process. Waydev is a software engineering intelligence platform (SEIP) created to leverage insights from your engineering stack (platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Jira) to improve quality, accelerate delivery, enhance planning, and boost hygiene.

You can consider the following basic strategies to improve the Cycle Time of your software development teams:

• Managing tasks more effectively through prioritization.
• Optimizing the code review process by automating error discovery and testing.
• Using clear guidelines and enforce continuous collaboration.
• Defining tracking and metrics from the start and keep communication lines open.
• Considering modular development to break down things into more manageable chunks.

How do we optimize each stage of the Cycle Time, from the first commit until delivery?

1. The Coding Stage

This stage focuses on the time from the first commit until a Pull Request is created, the time the teams spend coding. To optimize this stage of the Cycle Time, focus on smaller chunks of work, as that reduces repetition, code churn, and the frustration or multi-tasking within the group, optimizing this stage and, in the end, the Cycle Time.

2. The Pickup Stage

You can eliminate roadblocks and bottlenecks by making sure the handover from creating the pull request to the review team happens immediately. This requires clear organization and bidirectional communication in your engineering teams. Make sure you have enough individuals on each side of the equation to get things done efficiently and the right platform to manage and measure everything.

3. The Review Stage

Efficient, minimal review cycles maximize engineering time and leads to an overall decrease in Cycle Time length. Define what a good review contains so all project participants get what they need to continue and measure the efficiency of your team’s code review process using SEIPs.

4. The Deploy Stage

Communication, support, and enthusiasm help minimize the time it takes to complete the whole process. Find ways to boost team performance through quicker and less complex chunks of successful work. The only way to do this is to use a platform that keeps track of everything in real-time and create a company or team culture of efficiency and enthusiasm.

Optimizing Cycle Time and Speeding up the entire software development process takes more than timing different parts of the work and pushing for greater efficiency. By using software engineering intelligence platforms (SEIPs) like Waydev and other SEIPs such as Jellyfish, Code Climate Velocity, GetDX and LinearB can help track and optimize various aspects of development. But metrics alone aren’t enough. Good management is essential for interpreting data and supporting your team combined with project management frameworks and data-driven decision-making strategies, your team can build and deploy more quickly and with greater customer satisfaction than ever before.

Cycle Time vs. Velocity

Another important metric that can help the productivity of the software development team is velocity.

While cycle time measures the total time taken to complete one task from start to finish, velocity measures the amount of work a team can complete in a determined period (e.g., in a sprint). This way, cycle time refers more to individual work, while velocity takes into consideration the team’s work.

By measuring these two metrics, software teams can work on speeding up individual tasks (reducing cycle time) while also ensuring they can handle more work overall (increasing velocity).