Metrics · Updated 2026-09-17
Lead time for changes
The time from a change being committed to that change running in production — one of the four DORA metrics.
Also called: Lead time
What it is
Commit to production. Narrower than cycle time, which usually starts earlier, and deliberately so: it measures the delivery pipeline rather than the whole development process.
What it actually tells you
Long lead time is rarely a coding problem. It is review queues, slow or flaky pipelines, manual approval steps, and batched releases. Because it captures all of those in one number, it is a good early warning that something structural is wrong, and a poor diagnostic on its own — you need the stage breakdown to know which.
Why review tooling affects it
Review is usually the longest stage. Anything that shortens the wait for first feedback shortens lead time, provided it does not add latency of its own — which is the trap with a slow blocking check in CI.
Common mistakes
- Measuring from pull request open rather than first commit, which hides work-in-progress time.
- Improving lead time by skipping review rather than accelerating it.
- Ignoring the difference between merged and actually deployed, especially with weekly release trains.