Increasing software developers' productivity and reducing the software development process' cycle time are key goals for organizations responsible for building software applications. During the early days of commercial software development, cost and performance were the factors that received the most attention as an area for improvement. In the 1980's quality and productivity have received a great deal of attention. It appears that, in the 1990's reducing software development time will be one of the primary goals of large and small software companies alike. To this end it is appropriate to examine the factors that affect software cycle time. Is it enough to try and improve programmer productivity or are there additional product or process improvements that might be considered? Assuming there are several factors that impact software development time, what are they and how much of an impact does each factor have? This paper examines the software development cycle. It motivates the importance of software cycle time reduction. A definition for software cycle time is proposed. The  objective  of  our research    has  been  to  provide  decision  makers  with  a model that will enable the prediction of the impact a set of  process  improvements  will  have  on  their  software development cycle time.  This paper describes our initial results  of  developing  such  a  model  and  applying  it  to assess  the  impact  of  software  assessments.