> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://help.swarmia.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://help.swarmia.com/features/metrics/issue-cycle-time.md). # Issue metrics Issue metrics help you understand how your engineering teams are delivering work — how fast issues move through your process, how much work is in progress, and how throughput changes over time. ## Overview The Overview page is a team comparison table. Each row represents one team, and columns show key metrics for the selected timeframe: * **Completed** — number of issues finished * **Completed / FTE** — throughput normalized by team size * [**Cycle time**](/definitions/defining-issue-lifecycle-and-cycle-time.md) — how long issues take from start to done * **WIP** — average number of issues in progress at a time * **FTE / Members** — team size context Each metric shows a delta indicator comparing the current period to the previous period or the organization's average. Working agreement targets (if configured) are shown as badges next to Cycle Time and WIP. Use Overview to spot which teams are improving, regressing, or outliers compared to the rest of the organization. ## Trends The Trends page shows how metrics evolve over time for a single selected team. Metrics are plotted as bar or line charts in a grid: * **Cycle time** — trend over time with previous-period comparison * **Completed issues** — throughput per time bucket * **Average WIP** — in-progress count per time bucket * **Completed / FTE** — throughput per developer (available when time bucket is set to monthly) You can switch between bar and line chart styles, adjust the time bucket (day/week/month), and change the aggregation function (avg, median, etc.). Use Trends to understand whether a team's performance is improving, degrading, or seasonal over a longer horizon. ## Flow The Flow page gives you issue-level detail for a selected team and timeframe. It is structured in three sections: **Summary stats** at the top show current-period averages for WIP and Cycle Time, with deltas vs. the previous period. **Two charts** sit below: * *Issues in Progress* — a line chart showing daily WIP count over the timeframe, with a benchmark line if a WIP limit is set in working agreements * *Cycle Time Scatter Plot* — one dot per completed issue, plotted by completion date and cycle time; includes a histogram overlay and inline stats (average, median, over-limit count, scope creep average) The **issue table** at the bottom lists every individual issue, with columns for status, title, labels, linked pull requests, scope creep %, child issue count, and cycle time. Use Flow to investigate the individual issues behind the aggregate numbers — find outliers, understand scope creep, and trace slow issues to their root cause. ## Status Use Status to find where work actually waits: the handoff column nobody owns or the review status that keeps coming back. The Status page breaks a team's work down by the individual statuses issues pass through, rather than by the [Swarmia status](/definitions/defining-issue-lifecycle-and-cycle-time.md#issue-status) each one maps to. The view is currently only available for Jira. The **Lifecycle breakdown** has one row per Jira status, grouped by the Swarmia status it maps to: * **Share:** the slice of all the time issues spent in the statuses you're showing * **Issues**: how many issues passed through the status * **Revisited**: share of those issues that left the status and came back to it * **Time in status**: how long issues spend there (average by default with other aggregates available) Use the status selector to hide statuses you don't want to count. Done and Won't do statuses are hidden by default, because an issue never leaves them, and there's no time to measure. The **issue table** below has one row per issue and one column per visible status, so you can see where a single issue spent its time. A colored dot indicates an issue that entered the same status more than once. The page covers issues that were last in progress within the selected timeframe, and counts their full status history, including time before the timeframe started. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter, and the optional `goal` query parameter: ``` GET https://help.swarmia.com/features/metrics/issue-cycle-time.md?ask=&goal= ``` `ask` is the immediate question: it should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. `goal` is optional and describes the broader end goal you are ultimately trying to accomplish on behalf of the user. GitBook uses it to tailor the answer towards what is most useful for that goal. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.