Cycle time
Cycle time is the elapsed time from when work starts on an item (first commit, status change to In Progress) to when it ships to users. It measures team flow without the queue noise that lead time includes. Shorter cycle times correlate with smaller batch sizes, fewer hand-offs, and faster feedback — all primary objectives of lean delivery practice.
Cycle time is the metric to optimize when you want to improve flow. Unlike lead time (which includes wait time before work starts), cycle time is what the team actually controls — once work begins, what slows it down? Common cycle-time killers: code-review wait (often 30-60% of cycle time on slow teams), test-suite duration, environment provisioning, approval gates. P75 cycle time per story type is a more useful operational metric than mean — outliers are where to dig.
Long-form posts that explore cycle time in depth — when to use it, common failure modes, how AI helps.
- BPMN process mining without Celonis moneyCelonis charges $100K-$1M+ for process mining. It's genuinely good. It's also wildly overpriced for 95% of teams. This is the lighter-weight playbook that actually works.9 min read
- Replacing Jira: a 30-day playbookThe honest 30-day playbook for moving off Jira. Four phases — audit, parallel run, cutover, decommission — plus the three patterns where this doesn't work.11 min read
- What's the actual ROI of AI in software delivery?$4-$8 back for every dollar spent within 6 months, for most teams. The honest math from real data, not the deck.7 min read
- How long should a sprint be when using AI to write stories?1-week sprints become the right default with AI. The 2-week standard was calibrated to slow manual planning — AI changes the math.6 min read
Related terms
- Lead time
Lead time is the elapsed time from when work is requested (story created, ticket filed) to when it's delivered (deployed to production).
- Throughput
Throughput is the count of work items completed per unit of time (typically per week or per sprint).
- WIP limit
A work-in-progress (WIP) limit caps how many items the team can have in flight at once, per workflow stage.