Operations → Continuous Integration
Lead Time for Changes
The elapsed time from a code change being committed until that change is successfully running in production.
What it measures
Lead Time for Changes measures how quickly committed work moves through review, integration, testing, release, and production deployment. Teams may use the first commit, merge time, or another documented start point, but the definition must remain consistent.
A rising lead time can reveal large batches, slow reviews, flaky tests, scarce environments, manual approvals, or release coordination bottlenecks. Percentiles are often more informative than a mean because a small number of delayed changes can create a long tail.