Measuring Time to Market in Jira

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Time to Market is a KPI that measures the time elapsed between the start of a project, the development of an entire product or a single feature, and its readiness for release or delivery to the Market. The metric is essential if your company wants to stay competitive and promptly respond to customer needs. The Time to Market metric shows how efficiently a company brings new products, features, or updates to the Market, which generally affects competitiveness and customer satisfaction.

Tracking this metric is an important KPI that, along with others, helps to evaluate team performance. How quickly can you develop and release from individual features to the overall app or project?

Critical Aspects of Time to Market as a KPI

📖 Definition. Time to Market is generally defined as the time that elapses between the conception of an idea or project and its launch or implementation. It covers various stages, including planning, development, testing, and deployment.

📏 Measuring. Time to Market is measured in hours, days, weeks, or months, depending on the nature of the project or product. The shorter the time, the more influential the organization is in responding to market demands.

⚡️ Importance. Time to Market is critical to staying ahead of the competition, meeting customer needs, and taking advantage of market opportunities. Reducing Time to Market allows organizations to take advantage of trends and technological advances more effectively.

🔄 Factors affecting Time to Market. Various factors influence Time to Market, including project complexity, development methodologies, team efficiency, resource availability, automation, and modern development methods.

😊 Customer satisfaction. Time to Market is directly related to customer satisfaction. Fast delivery of products or features means that customers can access new features or improvements faster, improving their overall experience with the company.

🏆 Competitive advantage. Organizations with a shorter Time to Market gain a competitive advantage by being the first to offer innovative solutions or improvements. This advantage can lead to increased market share and revenue.

📈 Continuous improvement. Time to Market is not a one-time metric but a continuous one. Organizations must regularly evaluate and improve their processes to reduce the time it takes to bring products to market.

🛡️ Risk management. A longer time to market increases the risk of changes in market conditions, consumer preferences, or technological progress, affecting the product's relevance and competitiveness.

📊 Strategic planning. Time to Market is a crucial factor in strategic planning. Organizations must balance the need for speed with quality, compliance, and risk management requirements.

🤝 Cross-functional collaboration. Achieving reduced time to market often requires close cooperation between different departments, including development, marketing, sales, and customer support.

How to calculate Time to Market in Jira

Sadly, Jira doesn't have a ready-made report for this. Check out the Time Between Status add-on to find that info quickly.

Select the Configuration option in the app and add a new Statuses Group.

🟢 Name the new Statuses Group.

🟢 Select the project in which the values will be calculated.

🟢 Start/Stop and 🟠 Pause. Those three fields are the timer triggers. Selecting the correct workflow to measure that covers a particular team's process. 

🟠 Pause - you can set it as an option. For example, stop the timer on the On Hold status, etc.

If your team follows Scrum, initiating the timer when the task transitions to "In Progress" and concluding it when it moves to "Done" for optimal results is advisable.

🟠 The add-on enables users to configure advanced settings for specific limits and implement escalation procedures if those limits are exceeded. Nevertheless, it's not mandatory and can be utilized once the manager has determined the relevant KPI numbers.

🟣 Configuration Overview - summarizes all your settings so you can ensure you've done everything correctly.

Another crucial metric to consider is the team calendar or work schedule.

This functionality assists users in defining weekends, holidays, and the start and end times for workdays.

Next, select the required project, period, and the newly created Statuses Group.

Once users have adjusted all the aforementioned settings, they will observe a report resembling the one shown in the screenshot.

So, the Time Between Statuses app will measure the time FROM the First transition to In Progress TO the Last transition to Readt to release, including working time only (8 hours minus weekends). 

You can export this report to Excel or other spreadsheet formats for a detailed overview or to create graphs. This data is intended to provide the manager and all involved parties clarity on team performance.

Examining each issue can offer deeper insights into your successes and improvement areas. Have you considered measuring Time to Market? Explore additional benefits with the Time Between Statuses app.