Working in cycles

A repeating window of work that gives the team its rhythm.

What Cycles are⁠

Cycles are fixed working periods, from one to eight weeks long, in which a team plans a set of issues.

They are similar to sprints but are not tied to releases. Each team can choose its cycle length, start day, and an optional cooldown period for bugs, cleanup, or planning work.

Planning a cycle⁠

• Assign issues to the current cycle or one of the next 15 upcoming cycles.
• Before a cycle starts, the capacity dial estimates how achievable its scope is using the team’s previous three completed cycles.
• For new teams, capacity uses the number of team members as an initial estimate.

While a cycle runs⁠

• Open issues generally roll over into the next cycle automatically when a cycle ends.
• Issues moved to Backlog, Triage, Canceled, or Completed do not roll over.
• You can automatically add started or completed issues to the current cycle when they do not already belong to one.
• The Cycles dashboard tracks scope, progress, and completion. Its historical graphs remain available even when issues change later.

Read the docs⁠

• Cycles. Configuring Cycles, planning work, rollover, and the Cycles dashboard.