What is Cycle Time?
The time from starting work on a change to delivering it.
Definition
Cycle time measures how long it takes to move a unit of work from "in progress" to "done" — typically from first commit (or when work starts) to merge or deploy. It is a flow metric closely related to lead time for changes.
How it’s measured
Track the elapsed time across the development stages of a change (coding, review, merge) and report the median. Pull-request-based cycle time breaks this into coding time, pickup time, review time, and merge time.
What good looks like
Strong teams keep PR cycle time to a day or two. Long cycle times usually concentrate in review pickup (PRs waiting to be looked at) rather than coding itself.
Why it matters
Cycle time is the most actionable flow metric because it decomposes into stages you can directly fix — like slow review pickup. Reducing it improves both delivery speed and developer experience.
Related terms
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