What's best practice for time remaining on task after done?

[Kim Cude]

Should you leave the time remaining as a way to compare with the original estimate or zero it out at the point of Done?

[Bhushan Nagaraj · Accepted solution]

You should leave the original estimate as it is. If you are using additional apps such as Tempo Budgets for example, you can compare your actual versus original estimate after delivering a large initiative or program of work for example.

[Kim Cude]

Thank you!  I concur.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

In most cases, you should leave it alone.  Setting it to 0 destroys the information around your estimates not being perfect (which is natural, humans won't get it right every time - but if you don't keep a measure of it, you have no way to improve), and messes up some reporting that some people find quite informative.  There's no benefit to setting it to 0.

[Kim Cude]

Thank you.  That was my thinking as well.  If you zero it out, you lose the Actuals to Originals measure to learn from.

[Adam Hanson]

Does this mean anything that is DONE is no longer adding any unused hours to TIME REMAINING?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, it will still do that.  But no one should be changing issues that are done.  It makes no sense to log work against issues that are complete and need no more attention.

[Adam Hanson]

Thanks. What would be the best way to not see unused time for completed tasks in a burndown chart then?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Nothing.

Burndown measures what you saiid you would do against what you did.  There's no looking at partial completions.