Kanban Cycle Time Average Days

Average Cycle Time in Kanban

In Kanban, cycle time is the clock that runs from the moment a card lands in an active work column (usually “Doing”) until it hits “Done”. The simple average is cycle time = total days / completed tasks, and it gives you a quick read on the team’s pace once you strip out the time spent waiting in the backlog.

Teams that have been at this a while pair the average with a moving average over the last 2–4 weeks and the 85th percentile. They lean on the percentile for SLA commitments because it captures the variability that the mean tends to hide. Cycle time also ties straight into Little’s Law, cycle time = WIP / throughput, so trimming WIP or pushing throughput up shortens delivery.

Applications

It helps you forecast deliveries, set SLAs, spot bottlenecks, and steer continuous improvement (kaizen). Software, marketing, support, and operations teams all use the metric to negotiate scope and tune WIP limits. Cycle time charts and cumulative flow diagrams (CFD) show up constantly in shops that follow David J. Anderson’s “Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change” (2010).

FAQ

Does cycle time include backlog time? No. Waiting in the backlog counts toward lead time, not cycle time. The cycle time clock only starts once active work begins.

Why use the 85th percentile instead of the average? Kanban distributions usually skew to the right, so the percentile paints a more honest picture of delivery risk. That makes it the safer number to promise stakeholders.

How can I reduce cycle time? Pull WIP limits down, go after the biggest bottlenecks your cumulative flow diagram (CFD) exposes, slice stories into smaller pieces, and cut the number of hand-offs between people.