Lead Time Trend by Issue Type(4.3.10)

Lead time — the time from when an issue is created to when it is first resolved — is one of the four standard delivery metrics. Tracking how lead time changes over time, broken down by issue type, reveals whether specific categories of work are becoming slower (indicating increasing complexity, dependency, or process friction) or faster (indicating process maturity and team learning).

What you can conclude

• A rising lead time trend for Bugs indicates that defects are becoming harder to fix — either increasing complexity or insufficient debugging capacity.
• A falling lead time trend for Stories indicates that the team is getting better at delivering features — process maturity or better requirements.
• Diverging lead time trends between issue types (some improving, some worsening) point to type-specific process or capacity issues.

How this chart works

Multi-line chart showing weekly average lead time (days from creation to first delivered resolution) per issue type. Issues never delivered leave the timing and are counted as abandoned in the week of their first abandonment, so a week of pure backlog cleanup shows zero delivered with a nonzero abandoned count. Use the date and project filters to track specific teams or periods.

The week in progress is shown at its value so far. Because the week is not yet complete, it covers only the issues delivered so far and can move in either direction as the week closes. The Avg Lead Time card above reads the latest complete week instead, so the two can legitimately disagree on the most recent point.