Primary metric: Time Built

Time returned is the delta between how much time it took the human to do the discrete operation before the output vs after. The human Beneficiary? staff, customers, or both!

Time Built = (time before - time after) * frequency, extrapolated monthly or yearly.1

This is not about time saved from not needing a human to develop the solution - we should remember, its likely that without Frontier Development, this work would never have been justified for Agile delivery in the first place. Also if Cycle Time were the primary metric, the pressure to deliver would increase and result in humans being burnt out.

PRIMARY METRICTime Built(time before − time after) × frequencyExtrapolated monthly or yearlyStaff TimeCustomer TimeBIAS GUARDSIf Time Built is the only metric, the system drifts toward speed over substance. Bias guards catch that.01Cycle Timeidea → production
Time from idea to production. Agentic velocity is fast, but complexity can still slow delivery — shelved projects count as a completed cycle to surface blockers faster.
02Capabilities Unlockedvalue with no prior backlog path
Count of distinct improvements to employee or customer experience that had no prior path to a backlog.
03Utilisation ReturnedRTB time freed to reinvest in CTB
Repetitive run-the-business (RTB) time recovered and available to reinvest in change-the-business (CTB) work and new Agile projects.
04Ad-hoc Velocityinitiatives move faster over time
Average waiting time from initiative submission to bubble pick-up. Fast rejections also count — the clock stops when a decision is made, not only when work begins.
05Engineers Upskilledseconded SEs returning with new capability
Count of seconded Skilled Engineers returning to their delivery team with new agentic capability, tracked each time a bubble completes.
06Agentic Coveragecoding hours in equivalent human hours
Coding hours expressed in equivalent human hours. AI estimates the conversion — measurement overhead is negligible.
Agentic Coverage: AI estimates the conversion — measurement cost is negligible. PRIMARY METRICTime Built(time before − time after) × frequencyExtrapolated monthly or yearlyStaff TimeCustomer TimeBIAS GUARDSIf Time Built is the only metric, the system drifts toward speed over substance. Bias guards catch that.01Cycle Timeidea → production
Time from idea to production. Agentic velocity is fast, but complexity can still slow delivery — shelved projects count as a completed cycle to surface blockers faster.
02Capabilities Unlockedvalue with no prior backlog path
Count of distinct improvements to employee or customer experience that had no prior path to a backlog.
03Utilisation ReturnedRTB time freed to reinvest in CTB
Repetitive run-the-business (RTB) time recovered and available to reinvest in change-the-business (CTB) work and new Agile projects.
04Ad-hoc Velocityinitiatives move faster over time
Average waiting time from initiative submission to bubble pick-up. Fast rejections also count — the clock stops when a decision is made, not only when work begins.
05Engineers Upskilledseconded SEs returning with new capability
Count of seconded Skilled Engineers returning to their delivery team with new agentic capability, tracked each time a bubble completes.
06Agentic Coveragecoding hours in equivalent human hours
Coding hours expressed in equivalent human hours. AI estimates the conversion — measurement overhead is negligible.
Agentic Coverage: AI estimates the conversion — measurement cost is negligible.

Supporting metrics (bias guards)

There are six bias guards. Each metrics standalone success is likely to be at the detriment of something else, so they are not a replacement for Time Built. They need to be considered as a collective, and in this form is an indicator that the model is operating healthily:

  1. Cycle Time: The time taken from idea to production. Agentic coding might be fast, but complexities might slow progress down. Shelved projects can be considered as a cycle to encourage faster feedback loops.
  2. Capabilities unlocked: The number of distinct improvements made to employee and customer experience. An assessment of value created with no prior path to a backlog.
  3. Utilisation returned: How much repetitive time spent running the business (RTB), is being freed up to focus on company goals i.e. Changing the Business (CTB). This is Employee Time built that can be invested back into new Agile projects.
  4. Ad-hoc velocity: The rate at which ad-hoc initiatives are resolved. Can be expressed as average waiting time, before a bubble picks up the initiative. If an initiative is not suitable for Frontier Development, this encourages a faster feedback loop, but the company should educate what is likely right-fit, to reduce burden on governance.
  5. Engineers upskilled: The number of times a seconded Skilled Engineer returns to their teams with new skills learnt.
  6. Agentic coverage: coding hours expressed in equivalent human hours. AI estimates this conversion, so effort to estimate this measurement is negligible.

  1. For reporting purposes, Staff and Customer should be two metrics, not one. ↩︎