Definition
Cycle time is the elapsed time a work item takes to go from the moment work starts until it is done. It is measured in calendar time, not effort: a job that needs two hours of work but sits three days in a queue has a cycle time of three days.
Cycle time per stage
Total cycle time tells you that work is slow. Cycle time per stage tells you why. Add up the average days jobs spend in each stage of your board and the longest one is your bottleneck. That is usually a waiting stage (awaiting review, awaiting a customer, awaiting parts), not a working one.
Cycle time vs lead time
- Lead time: from the request arriving to delivery. This is what the requester experiences.
- Cycle time: from work starting to delivery. This is what your team controls.
How to shorten it
- Find the slowest stage first. Improving any other stage will not change the total much.
- Limit work in progress. Fewer jobs in flight means each one finishes sooner.
- Set a deadline per stage. A stage SLA flags jobs at risk before they stall.
Cycle time in QodFlow
On the Diamond plan, the Overview shows a bottleneck report, Where jobs wait: average days per stage over 30 or 90 days, the slowest stage, and overdue jobs per stage.