Understanding Cycle Time
Measure how long tasks take from the moment work starts until completion, and find opportunities to speed up delivery.
What Is Cycle Time?
Cycle time is how long a task takes once work starts. On an AI-optimized board it runs from the moment an agent claims the task until it is completed. On other boards it runs from the task's first move to another column until it is completed. Goals aren't counted.
It answers the question: "How long does it take to finish a task once we start working on it?" Shorter cycle times mean faster delivery and quicker feedback.
Navigate to Cycle Time
On the Metrics Dashboard, click the Cycle Time card. The page shows Average, Median, Min and Max for the tasks completed in the range.
Reading the Chart
Cycle Time Trend plots the average cycle time of each day's completed tasks. Once there are two days of data, a dashed trend line shows whether cycle time is rising or falling.
An average well above the median means a few slow tasks are pulling it up. Max shows the slowest, and Completed Tasks below the chart lists each task with its time. On AI-optimized boards, Agent Filter shows one agent's tasks.
Reducing Cycle Time
To improve cycle time:
- Write clearer task descriptions and acceptance criteria
- Break large tasks into smaller, focused pieces
- Remove blockers and dependencies where possible
- Make sure tasks have all the context needed to start immediately
- Turn on Exclude Weekends when nobody works weekends, so a task left on Friday doesn't look slow
You're all set!
You've completed all the steps in this guide.