Definition
An estimate of the total time (from both, authors and reviewers) that has gone into a pull request.
Calculation
This is a synthetic measure we developed to approximate the amount of time spent on a pull request across the entire team. This metric factors in variables like the size of the change, the number of participants, amount of discussion, and the number of review cycles the pull request has undergone.
Why it matters
Continuous Delivery necessitates breaking work into small batches to ship frequently. Ideally, work that your dev team is shipping requires less than a day to move from the first commit to being deployed to production. Faster shipment reduces shipping risk, creates fewer bottlenecks in the review process, and, in turn, keeps developers happy and unstuck.
How to use it
Activity is an indicator that a change is too large or complex. Interpret a highly active pull request as one that could be at-risk of derailing your sprint.