What is lead time, and how do you measure it in Metabase?

Lead time is the elapsed time from when a work item is created to when it's done (completed_at − created_at). It captures the whole wait a request experiences — including time sitting in the backlog — which makes it the customer's-eye view of delivery speed. Measure it in Metabase from issue-tracker data synced into a database (Linear or Jira).

Lead time vs. cycle time

A big gap between the two means work waits a long time in the backlog before anyone starts it.

What data does lead time need?

• created_at (always available) and completed_at / resolved (set when done).
• A reliable "done" definition: state_type = 'completed' (Linear) or status_category = 'Done' (Jira).
• No status history required for basic lead time — only created anddone timestamps.

SQL patterns

SELECT
  date_trunc('week', completed_at) AS week,
  percentile_cont(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (
    ORDER BY EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM (completed_at - created_at)) / 86400.0
  ) AS median_lead_days,
  percentile_cont(0.9) WITHIN GROUP (
    ORDER BY EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM (completed_at - created_at)) / 86400.0
  ) AS p90_lead_days
FROM issues
WHERE state_type = 'completed'
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1;

Pitfalls

Where this metric applies

• Linear + Metabase — created → workflow-state completed
• Jira + Metabase — created → status category Done

Related

Dashboards

Metrics

FAQ