What is cycle time in project management?

Cycle time measures the elapsed time from when work actively starts on an item to when it is done. It differs from lead time, which starts when the item is requested (entered the backlog).

Does this count weekends?

Both calendar days and working days (Mon–Fri) are shown. Working days exclude Saturday and Sunday. Public holidays are not automatically excluded.

What format should batch input use?

One item per line. Each line is: start datetime, end datetime — for example: 2024-03-01 09:00, 2024-03-05 17:00. Date-only values (no time) are accepted and default to midnight (00:00).

Why does average differ from median?

Average is pulled up by a few long outliers; median is the middle value and is more representative of typical delivery speed. For SLA and forecasting, the 85th-percentile value (shown in batch mode) is often most useful.

Can I paste data directly from Jira or Linear exports?

Yes — copy the start and end columns from a CSV export, paste them here with a comma between each pair, one row per line. ISO 8601 dates and common date formats (YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD/YYYY) are all accepted.

Cycle Time Calculator (PM)

Name: Cycle Time Calculator (PM)
Availability: InStock
Author: Nham Vu

Calculate cycle time in calendar days, working days, hours, and minutes — or batch-analyze a set of tickets to get average, median, min, and max.

Start date & time

End date & time

Enter dates and click Calculate to see cycle time.

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Summary

Calculate cycle time in calendar days, working days, hours, and minutes — or batch-analyze a set of tickets to get average, median, min, and max.

How it works

Enter the start date/time and end date/time for a work item.
The calculator shows cycle time in calendar days, working days (Mon–Fri), hours, and minutes.
Switch to Batch mode and paste multiple start/end pairs — one per line, comma-separated.
Batch mode computes average, median, minimum, and maximum cycle times across all items.
Copy the results or export for use in your retro or flow metrics dashboard.

Use cases

Measure how long tickets actually take from start to done.
Identify outliers slowing your team's throughput.
Feed accurate data into Kanban flow metric reports.
Compare cycle times across sprints in retrospectives.
Calculate SLA compliance for support tickets.
Estimate future delivery based on historical cycle time percentiles.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated: 2026-07-01 · Reviewed by Nham Vu