Split workload equally on entire scheduled duration of a project / issue / task

Question

Hi

I am currently testing Jira Software Advanced Roadmaps in context of a project portfolio of a digital transformation projects. With the main goal to gain visibility on the resource consumption overall.

There is one thing I still struggle with: When assigning the estimated workload in hours, Advanced Roadmaps fully books available capacity of a team assigned on the next possible slots. Which, of course, in principle is useful as it indicates when you work on your projects in sequential mode. But as we got many resources, involved in different projects simultaneously, i we would rather prefer to have the workload of one issue, planned within a certain timeframe, split equally on all available weeks according to the portfolio planning. And allow to book the same resources on other, also equally distributed projects instead.

Any suggestions how to make advanced roadmaps change the split of workload from maximum available to distributed over project duration?

Thanks for any assistance and explanation.

Cheers

Peter

Yuliia Hushcha _Reliex_ · Answer

Hi @Peter Mattenberger

If people are from the same team, you can allocate the task to them, if people are from different teams, then you can create a Functional team and they will all be on the same dashboard in Activity Timeline plugin.

Activity Timeline could help you with the workload calculation as well. Balance mode evenly distributes hours for a set period. This is a default calculation mode. For example, If a task is estimated for 10 hours, and a manager schedules it for 2 days, the system will automatically schedule 5 hours per each day for that task.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to ask me. We can provide a demo session for you if need it.

Peter Mattenberger · Answer

Hi @Yuliia Hushcha _Reliex_

Thanks for picking up the topic.

We do use add-ons rsp. apps on Jira (mainly on Service Management, not Software, as we are no SW developping team).

We are also testing BigPicture and there, the workload assigned to a resource is spilt and distributed on the entire planned duration of a project / task etc. The issue in our case is, that we have several (part time) resources working on different topics simultaneously. So we have several projects running in parallel, having the same resources assigned to them. And what we are looking for is an equally distributed workload from those different projects on the different resources assigned - split on the entire duration of the projects.

In Jira SW Advanced Roadmaps, it seems like it's not possible to set the capacity / workload calculation like this. It just alway assigns the maximum available capacity to the project - not respecting the planned duration for a projetc/task. So workload just piles up in the beginning until it's all done, but not taking the overall duration into consideration to flatten weekly load by distributing it over the duration of the project(s).

I would love to use Atlassian board measures to plan. But if it's not possible due to various reasons (not Agile SW Development, no sprints, basically no teams just individuals, etc.) and I need to rely on a third party App, that's fine as well. Then, I guess we found a feasible solution already in BigPicture.

Cheers

Peter

Yuliia Hushcha _Reliex_ · Answer

Hi @Peter Mattenberger

Do you use any add-ons for Jira?  ActivityTimeline add-on allows splitting that ticket to be worked on different days. Splitting the Jira tickets works not only with one person but also across multiple people and dashboards.