Cycles & Flight Levels
Glacier offers two ways to add time and scope structure to a board: cycles for time-boxing iterations, and flight levels for altitude-based scoping. Both are opt-in per project.
Cycles
Cycles are time-boxed iterations — the equivalent of sprints, but lighter. They give your board a cadence without forcing daily standups or rigid planning ceremonies.
Enabling cycles
Go to Project Settings → Cycles and toggle cycles on. Set the cycle duration (1, 2, or 4 weeks) and the start date.
How cycles work
- Each cycle has a name (auto-generated from the date range), a start date, and an end date.
- Cards are assigned to a cycle from the card detail panel → Cycle field.
- Only one cycle can be active at a time.
Autorollover
When a cycle ends, unfinished cards are automatically rolled to the next cycle. The behaviour depends on the column type:
| Column type | Autorollover behaviour |
|---|---|
| Done | Card is detached from the cycle — it's complete. |
| Active / Waiting | Card moves to the first Queue column in the new cycle. |
| Queue | Card is reassigned to the next cycle without moving. |
Autorollover runs automatically at the start of the next cycle. No manual triage needed.
When to use cycles
Use cycles when your team benefits from a regular cadence: weekly check-ins, fortnightly demos, or predictable delivery windows. If your team works purely pull-based with no external stakeholder rhythm, you may not need cycles at all.
Flight levels
Flight levels scope a project board into independent altitudes, each with its own columns, WIP limits, cards, and audience. The concept comes from Klaus Leopold's Flight Levels model.
The three altitudes
| Level | Altitude | Audience | Cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | High | Leadership, product owners | Monthly / quarterly |
| Coordination | Mid | Team leads, cross-functional | Weekly |
| Delivery | Low | Engineers, individual contributors | Daily |
Each level has its own board. Cards at higher levels can represent initiatives or epics; cards at lower levels represent tasks or implementation work. The levels are independent — there's no hard parent-child link between them unless you create it via card hierarchy.
Enabling flight levels
Go to Project Settings → Flight Levels and enable them. Choose which levels to use (you don't need all three). Each level gets its own set of columns, which you configure independently.
Switching between levels
Use the level selector in the board toolbar to switch between altitudes. Each level shows only its own cards and columns.
Metrics and flight levels
When flight levels are enabled, the Metrics tab shows a level selector. You can scope throughput, cycle time, and cumulative flow to a specific altitude. This lets leadership look at initiative-level flow while engineers look at task-level flow from the same data.
Disabling flight levels
If you enable flight levels and later decide they're too much overhead, you can disable them from Project Settings → Flight Levels. You'll be asked to map existing level columns to a single set of board columns before the levels are merged. Cards from all levels are consolidated onto the merged board.
Cycles + flight levels together
Cycles and flight levels work independently. You can have cycles enabled at any flight level, or use cycles without flight levels. Autorollover applies per-level when flight levels are active.