🧭 How to See Who Worked on What in Each Status — Across Sprints in Jira

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Why Agile Teams Need More Than Just “Assignee” and “Status” Fields

Jira tells you what happened, but not always when or who was responsible during critical workflow moments.

Agile teams thrive on visibility and iteration. But if you're a scrum master, team lead, or project manager, you've probably run into this:

• Who was working on this task when it stalled in "In Progress"?
• Why did this story take 4 days in QA, and who was handling it?
• Did we overload one team member during sprint 17?
• How long did issues sit untouched while assigned to someone?

These are the questions Jira struggles to answer — and where Time in Status fills the gap.
Our tool makes it easy to uncover exactly who handled an issue at each stage, how long it stayed in each status, and where bottlenecks occur.

Because in Jira, the answers are buried — or worse, unavailable. And here's why that’s a problem.

The Visibility Gap in Jira Reporting

While Jira provides tools such as assignee history, status changes, and sprint filters, you can’t intersect these data points to answer more advanced questions, especially those rooted in accountability, cycle time, and workflow optimization.

You can’t ask Jira:

“Which developer had this issue while it was in In Progress?”

And that’s not a small issue. It impacts:

• Sprint retrospectives.
• Workload management.
• Root cause analysis.
• Cross-functional collaboration.

Use Cases Agile Teams Need But Can’t Get From Native Jira

Let’s walk through real-world scenarios where this missing visibility causes friction, and what agile leaders are trying to uncover:

1. 🐌 Why Did This Ticket Get Stuck in Development?

“Sprint velocity dropped this cycle. What changed?”

You pull up a burndown chart and see a dip, but can’t pinpoint why. Jira shows issue status changes, but doesn’t tell you:

• Who was assigned during that stall?
• How long does it stay “In Progress”?
• If the same person was assigned throughout?

Scrum Masters need this to identify bottlenecks and drive smarter retrospectives.

2. 🎯 Who Was Handling Tasks During QA or Review?

“We had bugs slipping through last sprint. Were our QA steps followed?”

Without knowing who owned the issue during QA, you’re left guessing. This insight is critical for:

• Reviewing QA handoffs.
• Training opportunities.
• Understanding missed SLAs.

3. ⚖️ Are We Overloading a Single Developer?

“Why does Alex always have delayed stories?”

You check assignments, but can’t tie them to status durations. Alex may have been assigned to 10 tasks, but which ones were active during the development process?

Seeing task distribution by person and status gives you accurate workload visibility, not just assignment counts.

 

4. 🔁 How Long Does Work Take While Assigned?

“Our cycle time metrics look fine — but stories still feel slow.”

Jira's built-in metrics often blur the story. A task might span 5 days total, but:

• 2 days waiting in the backlog.
• 1 day in review.
• 2 days “In Progress”.

Without visibility into status-specific durations per assignee, your metrics may mask inefficiencies.

📈 5. How Can We Gain a Comprehensive Overview of Sprint Performance?

“Our sprint reports show completed tasks, but do they reflect the full picture of our team's performance?”

While Jira provides basic sprint reports, they often lack the depth necessary to understand team dynamics and sprint outcomes fully. Key questions remain unanswered:

• How does our current sprint performance compare to previous sprints?
• Are we accurately estimating and committing to workloads?
• How are tasks distributed among team members, and is the workload balanced?
• What changes occurred in the sprint scope, and how did they impact delivery?

The Sprint Performance Report in the Time in Status app offers a detailed analysis of sprint activities, enabling teams to:

• Assess Team Velocity: Evaluate committed versus completed work across sprints to identify trends and set realistic goals.
• Monitor Workload Distribution: Visualize workload assignments per team member, including added or removed tasks during the sprint.
• Track Completion Rates: Understand the percentage of work completed versus committed, helping to identify areas for improvement.
• Analyze Scope Changes: Examine added or removed issues during the sprint to manage scope creep effectively.

By leveraging these insights, teams can make informed decisions, enhance sprint planning, and drive continuous improvement in their agile processes.

💡 Agile Insight: Work Stalls in Statuses, Not in Boards

A common myth in agile reporting is that everything can be diagnosed by looking at issues on a board.

But tasks don’t fail on boards — they fail in statuses. Each status phase (In Progress, QA, and Waiting for Review) has different owners, expectations, and associated risks.

👉 The more you can see who handled work in each phase, the better you can:

• Coach your team.
• Improve cycle time.
• Eliminate handoff confusion.

🧠 Most Teams Only Look at “Final Assignee” — That’s Not the Whole Picture

Jira’s default reports display the last assignee, which can be misleading for tasks that pass through multiple hands.

For example:

• A task might start with Dev A, then go to QA B, and finally back to Dev A.
• You only see Dev A as the assignee.
• However, you overlook how long QA B had the task and what happened during that phase.

Tracking this flow provides real accountability and clarity of process.

✅ So What’s the Fix?

Advanced reporting tools like Time in Status solve this by showing:

• Status duration per assignee.
• Workflow stage breakdown.
• Sprint-based filtering.
• Pivot views by user + status.

It unlocks the data Jira collects, but doesn’t let you combine it, so you can finally see who worked on what, when, and for how long.

✅ Start a trial
📚 Read the full documentation