How can we take in account two types of tasks in one time?

Anastasia_dgerz3

Hello!

We started using a tempo plugin.

And we have the following situation.

Sometimes developers have downtime in the project, for example if the customer didn't provide the api in the right time.

Our project managers want to create specific issues for these downtime in the project. But when developers have downtime, they work on the other tasks, for example they can estimate the other projects or they read technical books. In this situation they will log they work on two issues:

- downtime in the main project;

- work on the internal issues like estimation.

But this case is incorrect because developers need to log they work two times and the statistics will be incorrect.

But we need to see that developers work on the other issues because they have downtime in their main project.

How can we take into account the downtime work in the main project and in the same time the work on the other types of tasks?

Walter Buggenhout

Hi @Anastasia,

I am afraid this is not a question about tooling, but about managing capacity and flow of work.

Just on the issues part - it is not a good idea to log work on "downtime". Downtime is not work, so logging work on the issues that are actually being picked up makes a lot more sense.

However, I do understand that PMs want to know that the project is being held up. And even better, try to remove the impediments as soon as possible and keep the project flowing. In the end, they will probably want to avoid the project running late; maybe hold the customer accountable for delays on his part; and most likely make sure that time is spent on internal issues only in case of real and unavoidable downtime in the project.

To make that happen, PMs should try to make sure there is enough work available in the backlog so other project tasks may be picked up if something goes wrong. Also, when a task gets blocked mark it with a flag as impeded and make sure everybody involved does whatever they can to remove the impediment as soon as possible. And communicate. You could e.g. create a note on a Confluence page that you were waiting for that API for e.g. 3 days and decided to spend time on internal / other work for the time being. It will show you the project history in a single place for future reference.

There are tools out there that can help you track the impact of delay on your schedule, such as Portfolio. But make sure you actively manage the delays rather than reporting on them through the timesheets.