Cycle Time Trend Gadget

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https://youtu.be/bxSWszh7AAA

Overview

Depending on how you configure it, this gadget can calculate the key Kanban metrics like "Cycle Time" or "Lead Time" and display their trend. Or, you can simply calculate the time between two Jira statuses from the workflow. Use this gadget to see how fast your team delivers and to identify bottlenecks in your process flow.

  • "Cycle Time" is the amount of time that the team spent working on an item without the time that the task spent waiting on the board. Therefore, the Cycle Time should start being measured when the item task enters a "working" status, not earlier.

  • "Lead Time" is the time from the moment when the request was made by a client and placed on a board to when all the work on it is completed and the request is delivered to the client. So it is the total time the client is waiting for an item to be delivered.

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The data is displayed for a specified number of time intervals relative to a specified date. For each time interval, the gadget identifies those issues from the specified filter (or dashboard's filter) that had a cycle completed in that interval, determines the cycle(s) duration, calculates the average time for that interval and displays it in the trend chart.

See the settings description below for how to configure the gadget.

Tips & Tricks
To calculate "Cycle Time", set the following:

  • Cycle starts = When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress"

  • Cycle ends = When the issue entered a status that has category "Done"

To calculate "Lead Time", set the following:

  • Cycle starts = When the issue was created or when the issue entered a status that has category "New"

  • Cycle ends = When the issue entered a status that has category "Done"

Configuration

The settings of this gadget are divided in 3 tabs:

  • Data tab - contains the required settings of the gadget, such as title or data source

  • More Settings tab - contains the optional settings, such as card colors

  • Colors tab - lets you customize the color of the lines displayed in the chart

Data tab

On this tab you can configure the required settings of the gadget.

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Setting

Description

 

Setting

Description

 

Gadget Title

Choose what to display in the title bar of the gadget.

 

Data Source

Select the type of Data Source used by the gadget:

  • The agile Board of your team.

  • A Saved filter containing the issues for which you want the metrics to be calculated. Make sure that the specified filter is shared with the users who will also visualize this gadget. Check Include the sub-tasks if you want the sub-tasks from the selected board, filter or JQL to be included in the calculation.

  • A JQL query that returns the issues you want to be processed by the gadget.

 

Cycle starts

Indicates what to consider as the start event of a cycle.

You can choose between:

  • When the issue was created

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "New" - the cycle starts when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "New". This includes those gray-colored statuses from Jira, like New, Backlog or To Do.

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" - the cycle starts when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "In Progress". This includes those blue-colored statuses from Jira, like In Work, In Progress or In Testing.

  • When the issue entered this status - cycle started when the issue was transitioned to the specified workflow status.

    Choose also how to handle the case when there are multiple transitions to the start status or to the status category by setting If multiple entries in the start status, consider the ? entry to first or last. See the example below.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that had multiple entries in the "In Progress" status before being moved to "Done". How should the cycle time be calculated, from the first or from the last transition in the "In Progress" status?

If you set If multiple entries in the start status, consider the first entry, the cycle will start when the issue was transitioned in the "In Progress" status for the first time.

If you set If multiple entries in the start status, consider the last entry, the cycle will start when the issue was transitioned in the "In Progress" status for the last time.

 

Cycle ends

Indicates what to consider as the end event of a cycle.

You can choose between:

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "Done". This includes those green-colored statuses from Jira, like Done, Resolved or Closed.

  • When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to any workflow status of category "In Progress". This includes those blue-colored statuses from Jira, like In Work, In Progress or In Testing.

  • When the issue entered this status - the cycle ends when the issue was transitioned to the specified workflow status.

You can also choose how to handle the case when there are multiple transitions to the end status by setting If multiple entries in the end status, consider the ? entry to first or last. See the example below.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "New" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that had multiple entries in the "Done". How should the cycle time be calculated, till the first or till the last transition in the "Done" status?

If you set If multiple entries in the end status, consider the first entry, the cycle will end when the issue was transitioned in the "Done" status for the first time.

If you set If multiple entries in the end status, consider the last entry, the cycle will end when the issue was transitioned in the "Done" status for the last time.

 

Multiple cycles

Decide how the gadget should handle those Jira issues that have multiple cycles. This situation occurs if the issue was transitioned multiple times through the start and finish statuses of the cycle.

Example
You configured the gadget to start the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "In Progress" and to end the cycle When the issue entered a status that has category "Done" and there was a Jira issue that was moved from "In Progress" to "Done" multiple times, so it had multiple cycles. What cycle do you want to be displayed?

You can choose between:

  • Display all cycles - all the cycles will be displayed with their own dot in the plotting chart and their own entry in the data table.

  • Display only the first cycle - only the first cycle of the issue will be displayed, with all the others being ignored

  • Display only the last cycle - only the last cycle of the issue will be displayed, with all the others being ignored

  • Display as one cycle from the start time of the first cycle to the finish time of the last cycle - a single cycle will be displayed, having as the start time the moment when the first cycle started and as the finish time the moment when the last cycle ended. See the picture below.

 

Display data until:

Specify the date until the data is displayed. You can choose between:

This date (recommended): - The time intervals will be aligned with the specified date.
Previous day (end-of-day) - the data will be displayed until the end of Yesterday without the need to manually enter a date.

 

Interval duration

Specify the duration (in weeks) for the time intervals used when calculating and displaying the average time.

 

Display the data for ? intervals back

Specify the number of time intervals to be displayed in the chart relative to the date specified at "Display data until".

 

More Settings tab

On this tab you can configure the optional settings of the gadget.

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Calculate in

Specify in what time unit measure the results will be displayed.

Series to Display

Choose what series to display in the chart. You can select one or more options:
Average Cycle Time - displays the average cycle time for each time interval in the chart.
Trendline - displays a line on the chart that reveals the overall direction of the data. The trendline can be:

  • Linear - a best-fit straight line that shows if the average cycle time is increasing or decreasing at a steady rate.

  • Polynomial - is a curved line determined based on an order 2 polynomial formula, which is recommended when the data fluctuates.

Don't count weekends

Check this option if you want to exclude the weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) from the cycle time calculation.

Show the Overall Average Cycle Time, calculated as the average of the last ? intervals

Check this option and specify a number of intervals, if you want the chart to calculate and display the overall average.

Show legend

Check this option if you want the chart legend to be displayed.

Show data table

Check this option if you want a data table to be displayed along with the chart. The Data tab displays, for every time interval in the chart, the issues along with their cycle time details and the average calculation.

Display horizontal gridlines

Check this option if you want the chart to display gridlines for the vertical axis.

Refresh cached data at next display

This gadget uses data caching for faster display, which means that some data resulted after processing are saved and reused next time the gadget is loaded. If you check it, the cache of the gadget will be deleted and recreated at the next reload. This setting is not persistent.

 

Colors tab

On this tab you can customize the color of the lines displayed in the chart.

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Automatically assign colors

Check this if you want the chart to automatically assign colors for the series.

Custom colors

Select any custom color you want the series to be displayed on by either entering the color's hexadecimal code or picking a color.

You can also use the Copy and Import buttons to copy and import the color configuration to gadgets of the same type.

Related blog articles

The following blog articles provide more information on how to use this gadget.