Cycle Time vs Delivery Time: The Metrics Every Engineering Leader Should Track

What Are Cycle Time and Delivery Time?

In modern software engineering, speed and visibility define competitive advantage. Tools like CodeInteliG make both measurable and actionable.

Two of the most misunderstood — yet critical — engineering metrics are Cycle Time and Delivery Time.
They both measure how long it takes to deliver code, but they focus on different parts of the journey.

Understanding this distinction helps CTOs and engineering leaders pinpoint where work slows down — whether it’s during coding, review, or release.

Cycle Time: Measuring Development Efficiency

At CodeInteliG, we define Cycle Time as:

At CodeInteliG, we define Cycle Time as the total time between a developer’s first commit on a branch and the moment that branch is merged into the main branch (or tagged for release).

This represents your team’s development speed — how efficiently engineers code, collaborate, and merge their work.

Why It Matters

• Reveals coding and review bottlenecks

• Tracks velocity of contributors and teams

• Helps identify PRs that take too long to review or approve

The Core Phases

1. Development Time → From branch creation → to PR open

2. Review Time → From PR open → to PR approval

3. Merge Time → From approval → to merge

Fast cycle times mean engineers are shipping efficiently, without blockers in code or process.

For a deeper dive into how engineering metrics like this drive productivity, read Engineering KPIs That Actually Matter.

Delivery Time: Measuring End-to-End Speed

Delivery Time measures how long it takes for code to reach production — from the moment work begins to when it’s deployed live.

Delivery Time = From first commit → to production release (deployment)

It’s the truest reflection of your time-to-value — the time from developer start to customer impact.

Why It Matters

• Surfaces delays in QA, staging, or DevOps

• Reflects CI/CD pipeline health

• Connects engineering velocity with business value

For context on how these metrics tie into strategic decision-making, explore Engineering Analytics for CTOs.

Why You Should Measure Both

Tracking both Cycle Time and Delivery Time gives you a complete operational picture.

When you measure only one, it’s easy to misdiagnose problems:

• Fast Cycle Time but Slow Delivery Time → QA or DevOps bottleneck

• Slow Cycle Time but Fast Delivery Time → Development inefficiency

Pre-Release Lag: The Hidden Delay

One of the most powerful derivative metrics is Pre-Release Lag — the gap between merge and production deployment.

Pre-Release Lag = Delivery Time − Cycle Time

It exposes hidden friction in your release process that standard metrics miss.
Shortening this gap directly improves feedback speed and customer responsiveness.

How CodeInteliG Brings It Together

CodeInteliG automatically measures Cycle Time, Delivery Time, and Pre-Release Lag across every repo, team, and organization.
Leaders can instantly:

• Compare cycle times across developers and sprints

• Spot review bottlenecks or QA delays

• Visualize trends as processes evolve

For a broader perspective on how CodeInteliG unifies analytics, read Why CodeInteliG Is Different.

Best Practices for Teams

To make these metrics actionable:

• Start timing from branch creation, not PR open

• Track Cycle Time for dev velocity

• Track Delivery Time for business velocity

• Watch Pre-Release Lag to improve release cadence

• Use historical trends to guide process changes, not blame

Bringing It All Together

Cycle Time shows how efficiently your engineers build.
Delivery Time shows how efficiently your company ships.
Together, they define your engineering throughput — the heartbeat of every high-performing software team.

Explore how CodeInteliG helps engineering leaders measure Cycle Time, Delivery Time, and Pre-Release Lag in real-time — all in one unified dashboard.