How to know the workload of team members during a sprint when using sub-task?

[Christophe Fruytier]

We are starting using sub-task and we noticed that the original estimate time per team members is not right. It doesn't take into account sub-task assigned to the team members.

It seems that the estimate time at sub-task level is not added to the workload of the team member who is assignee of the sub-task but well to the assignee of the task.

Are we using the sub-task in a wrong way?

We are a dev team working on multiple projets per sprint.

Thank you

[Thomas Deiler]

Dear @Christophe Fruytier,

this question was asked in similar way. Please read following posts:

Points per story (accumulated from sub-tasks)

Burndown charts in Jira ?

Analysis for Epic workload?

Was your question answered? If not how can I help you further?

So long

Thomas

[Christophe Fruytier]

Wow!  Thanks @Thomas Deiler for these related posts.  I see that we are still far to be a full scrum "compliant" team :-) but we work on it.

I understand that we have to work with SP and avoid as much as possible to work with time. Ok.  But let's say that we have a sprint of two weeks.  We have 10 tasks to do and the team agree to do it. It's easier than expected and everything is done in 8 days.  How do you advice to complete the two days?  Do we have to alterate the sprint scope? 

Another question to be sure, if I understand well, it's impossible in Jira, based on original estimate time at task and sub task level to know the workload in time per team member per sprint (at least if we used subtask)?

[Thomas Deiler]

Dear @Christophe Fruytier,

I understand that we have to work with SP and avoid as much as possible to work with time. Ok. But let's say that we have a sprint of two weeks. We have 10 tasks to do and the team agree to do it. It's easier than expected and everything is done in 8 days. How do you advice to complete the two days? Do we have to alterate the sprint scope?

When you backlog is well prepared, the team can pull from the top the next story (or task, that' just naming) to complete. But they will not commit to the changed scope. What is really finished in 2 days will count to the velocity. This means that the product owner has to agree that the additional stories are really done. Half ready stories are not counted.

Retrospective: Next step is to clarify the reason, why the team overestimated the stories. Was there some information missing? Was this a stomach estimation? Let them learn and improve to be next time better.

Another question to be sure, if I understand well, it's impossible in Jira, based on original estimate time at task and sub task level to know the workload in time per team member per sprint (at least if we used subtask)?

Sure you can do. If you are using the built-in work log mechanism, you can track the workload. But for agile teams, this doesn't make sense.

So long

Thomas

[Thomas Deiler]

Dear @Christophe Fruytier,

your didn't answer yet - are there still questions?

So long

Thomas

[Christophe Fruytier]

Dear @Thomas Deiler, Thanks for your answer and sorry for the delay in mine.  We are in transition towards a full agile team.  So right now, we are struggling when evaluating workload when using subtask.  Indeed, the time estimated at subtask level is added to the workload of the owner of the task and NOT the owner of the subtask.  So the workload per team member during the sprint is wrong.  Is there a reason for that or another way to it?

For your information, we click on the "dots" like in the picture below to see the workload 

[Thomas Deiler]

Dear @Christophe Fruytier,

what is added to a task (story, or?) is done by the agile board. A work log entry is always personal means, if User_A logs 1h to regardless where, this work log stays at the person and will not be added to the work log of User_B. I can be added to the total time of a parent task.

Just open one subtask - there is a tab work log. These are the right values.

So long

Thomas

[Christophe Fruytier]

Dear @Thomas Deiler,

We have the problem when we estimate the subtask (Original Time Estimate).  Not when we are logging work.  So user A, owner of subtask Y of the task X, estimates, for instance, the subtask to 1h.  The "1 hour" are added to the Original Time Estimate of the user B (owner of the task X) instead of it's Original Time Estimate of the user A.

So when at the beginning of a sprint we would like to have the workload estimation (Original Time Estimate) per team member, the estimation is wrong.

Do you understand my point?

Thanks for your feedback

[Thomas Deiler]

Dear @Christophe Fruytier,

Yes I understand. I would raise a ticket at Atlassian, to verify if this isn't a bug.

But apart from this, I cannot recommend estimating sub tasks. This doesn't make sense, if you have already estimated the stories. There is no "plus value" making hours behind a sub-task. You can log work your time.

In the end the person doing the sub-task will be disappointed when the estimate was not kept .

What counts is that one sprint is done in time with the whole team.

I think some external help is not the worst thing. Bring a person inside your company that helps you quick start. A tool like Jira won't solve you problems.

So long

Thomas