Depending on who you read or what training class you take, these three things:
- Lead Time
- Flow Time
- Cycle Time
may be presented as three different things with distinct definitions. For example, in the SAFe® definition, flow time is defined as any sort of measure from start to finish of processing, lead time is from concept to cash, and cycle time is local to a development team.
But these definitions are arbitrary, and various authors do not agree to those definitions.
These terms same thing: to use a stop watch on a work item as it moves from point A to B. It does not matter how you use them, and there is no official definition that someone owns by which we must abide.
I am a great fan of the book Principles of Product Development Flow by Donald G. Reinertsen. In his work, he refers to any measure where we use a stopwatch to determine how long work spends in a queue, spends in processing, or takes to move through an entire system as cycle time. I use it the same way.
It really doesn’t matter.
I find arguments over terminology and specific details to be tedious. I believe my clients find them even more tedious than I do. I think the real takeaway from this article is that if a business won’t make or save money from adopting a change, then the change isn’t worth discussing. The things I advocate for are intended to cause positive business effects.
If I convince you to stop saying lead and cycle time interchangeably and to use them a specific way only, I don’t believe that a positive business impact will result.
For most leaders, listening to two experts argue about things like that, or whether or not Scrum is a framework or a methodology sounds like two nerds arguing about whether or not a 4th level magic user can beat a 5th level druid in Dungeons & Dragons. The entire discussion to them is a waste of their time.
For the purposes of Kanban, which is the category this article lies in, measuring flow/lead/cycle time can be done in multiple ways – from start to finish of the local process, the amount of time spent in queues, the time that different people hold the work item… all of this is valuable data for decision-making. But don’t measure every possible cycle time you can just because it is there. Measure with purpose. Measure what matters.
I tend to use cycle time as my preferred term.
Scaled Agile, Inc. (n.d.). Measure and Grow. Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from https://framework.scaledagile.com/measure-and-grow