Cycle Time Reports

A Cycle Time Report is used to measure the efficiency of a process or workflow and to determine a team’s task completion time. Cycle Time is the total amount of time that a work item, such as a task or feature, remains in the ‘Work in Progress’ status. Therefore, it is the duration taken for a work item to move from the ‘In Progress’ column to the ‘Done’ column on a typical Kanban Board.

The metrics used in this report include Average Cycle Time, Median Cycle Time, Minimum Cycle Time, and Maximum Cycle Time.

1. Average Cycle Time is the mean duration of all work items or tasks under implementation.
2. Median Cycle Time is the middle value of all sorted Cycle Times.
3. Minimum and Maximum Cycle Time are the shortest and longest durations, respectively.

Figures 4-10 and 4-11 illustrate a Cycle Time Report in a digital Kanban tool:

Figure 4.10: Cycle Time Report (Source: Vabro)

Figure 4-10 above shows a Vabro "Cycle Time Report" for "Board 12," visualizing task completion times. It displays a list of tasks and their corresponding durations represented by horizontal bars, indicating the time spent on each task.

Figure 4.11: Cycle Time Report (Source: Jira)

Figure 4-11 above shows a "Cycle Time Trend Gadget" in Jira tool, displaying the average time it takes to complete tasks over five time intervals. The overall average cycle time is 25.33 hours, with a downward trend indicated by the orange line.

The key benefits of using a Cycle Time Report are to help teams:

1. Identify improvement opportunities to optimize workflows.
2. Provide accurate estimates of delivery times to set stakeholder expectations and commit to targets.
3. Consider the Cycle Times of various processes and prioritize those that offer the highest improvement benefits.
4. Identify and eliminate blockers in the process.
5. Focus on continuous improvements by targeting Cycle Time reductions.

Depending on the information needs of the Kanban Team and other stakeholders, Cycle Time Reports can include control charts, histograms, summary tables, and/or line graphs. Below is a brief description of how each visual can be used:

1. Control charts can be used to present the Cycle Time of individual tasks, features, or work items over a specified duration. This visual helps the team understand any variations in Cycle Time, identify outliers, and address them to bring the Cycle Time within acceptable limits. In a typical Cycle Time control chart, the task or feature completion date is plotted on the x-axis, and the number of hours or days taken to complete the task or feature is plotted on the y-axis.
2. Histograms can be used to depict the distribution of Cycle Time frequency for completed work items in a given workflow. In a typical histogram, Cycle Time (in hours or days) is plotted on the x-axis, and the number of work items is plotted on the y-axis.
3. Summary tables can be used to capture numerical summaries of gathered Cycle Time data, providing a detailed comparison of Cycle Times for specific teams or work items across different time periods. A typical summary table might contain information on the average, median, minimum, and maximum Cycle Times for various categories of work items in a workflow or across workflows related to selected teams over a specific timeframe.
4. Line graphs can be used to depict trends in Average Cycle Time over a specified duration. A typical line graph will have selected time periods on the x-axis and Average Cycle Time on the y-axis.