Start lead time at the branch

Change lead time runs from when work starts to its deployment. Changeline starts it at a work item’s first move out of To Do, unless a Jira admin chooses creation. DORA starts the clock at the commit, and Jira gives an app no commit times. A Jira Automation rule makes the two the same: the branch is created when work starts, and the rule moves the work item to In Progress.

Check the setting

1. A Jira admin opens Settings. Under Lead time, When work starts is the default, and it is the one this lesson assumes.

Add the rule

1. Open Jira automation at https://your-site.atlassian.net/jira/settings/automation and press Create rule.

2. For the trigger, pick Branch created from the source-control app for Jira your site uses: GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket for Jira.

3. Add the action that moves a work item to a status, and set it to In Progress.

4. Turn the rule on. From now on a branch named with a work item’s key, such as CHK-31-checkout-retry, moves CHK-31 to In Progress when it is created.

Changeline connects to nothing for this. The rule uses the branch event of a source-control app, and only moves a work item’s status.

If you don’t see Branch created

The source-control app for Jira is not installed on your site, or it is not connected to the space. A Jira admin installs it from the Atlassian Marketplace. Until then, move work to In Progress by hand when it starts. Changeline still counts it from that move.

What you have now

Work starts when its branch is created, and lead time counts from there. That completes the lessons. Next, Getting started lists the figures, and Across spaces shows them for more than one space.