Whats the best way to create project plans that track duration and time spent separately?

Rob Horan
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July 3, 2022

I would like to be able to create project plans that allow me to estimate and plan with time, but in two ways:

  1. Duration of tasks
  2. Actual work time on tasks

What's the difference?  Not everything needs hands-on time.  A task might need only 1 hour of hands-on time but might span 3 days.  Maybe we need to wait for someone to get back to us.  Maybe we can only put in a few minutes at a time here and there.  Back in my lab days, I used to do cold beer filtration and bacterial challenges that would last for weeks, but most of that time I was letting it run on its own.  I need to schedule its start and end on a calendar, but also I might need to estimate the amount of hands-on, aka timesheet or billable time, needed to perform the task.

Ideally, I want to have ticket structures, so that I have an epic representing a milestone, and then standard issues within the epic with dependencies with an original set of estimated durations serving as the baseline, and then as the project moves on and end dates change, dates shift accordingly, automatically.  This should not affect effort estimates, which will be tracked on their own.

Is this possible?  Is it possible with Advanced Roadmaps? If not, what other tools could provide this functionality?

Before it comes up, this isn't a sprint-related idea, and a solution does not have to adhere to the dogma and scripture of any methodology.  For this particular scenario, I'm simply tracking when things are initially projected to be done vs when they are actually done, and I need to track both how long the task takes and how much actual work was done.

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2 votes
Karolina Wons_SaaSJet
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July 4, 2022

Hello @Rob Horan 

If it's ok for you to try the third-party add-on - Time in Status for Jira Cloud can help to solve your issue. This add-on is more suitable for tracking time in statuses and analyzing team efficiency.
It also includes a very user-friendly epic search. So you can track the total time spent on each issue (filtered by the Epic you need) in the "Total" column

2.png
This add-on is developed by my team and is free for use for teams up to 10 users. Please, let me know if you have any questions.

Hope you find it helpful.

Rob Horan
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July 4, 2022

Hi @Karolina Wons_SaaSJet thanks but that's good for looking at thing afterwards.  I need to be able to see how a delay in one place affects the rest of the schedule and future planning.

0 votes
Walter Buggenhout
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July 3, 2022

Hi @Rob Horan,

The case you describe is actually how advanced roadmaps is conceived. The actual roadmap is based on target start and end dates, while you are free to add estimates (in time or story points, ...) for the actual work itself.

Hope this helps!

Rob Horan
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July 4, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  will it be able to automatically reschedule based on dependencies and those dates?

AR's documentation is not exactly clear.  Lots of low level details, but not so much on basic high level concepts.  Or maybe it's just me.  Probably just me.

Thanks!

Rob Horan
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July 4, 2022

So estimates have no impact on duration?

Walter Buggenhout
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July 4, 2022

@Rob Horan

The tool has an auto scheduling algorithm in place that does take a billion things into account. That is at the same time its power and its Achilles' heel. If something does not show as you would expect it to be, it may turn into a nightmare to figure out why.

What I like about the auto scheduler, though, is that it can suggest what your roadmap would look like, taking all those variables into account. But it does not automatically commit the suggested plan to your Jira tickets unless you decide it is what you want it to look like (by pushing the suggested changes to Jira).

After looking at the suggested schedule, you can adapt the suggested timeline to your needs or likings. As soon as you deliberately set the target start/end dates, estimates are no longer related to the expected duration.

And then - you may wonder - how do you know your plan is at risk? That is where the warnings system comes in. When due dates get surpassed or your capacity is at risk or your milestones can no longer be achieved, there's several places in the tool where you will see clear indicators of problems.

And yet another good thing: the tool will notify you of problems, but you get to decide how you are going to solve them: by postponing the target dates, reducing scope or increasing capacity. If that is still not enough, you can even create different scenarios of your plan, to simulate best / worst / current ... simulations.

Don't be fooled, there is quite a bit of complexity in making this work. But I think all the basic stuff you need is there.

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Rob Horan
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July 4, 2022

I'll give it a try, thank you!

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  I tried to do so in a test, and its not working at all. 

My start and end dates are configured correctly:dates.png

So then I set up two issues with a dependency. The issue that needs to finish first was set up to extend for the next few days.

before.png

When I auto-schedule, instead of adjusting the start and end dates of the second issue based on the end date of the first, the first one just got rescheduled to an earlier date. 

auto.png

Unless I'm doing something completely wrong?

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  - I tried with a completely new epic and tasks, and auto-schedule is completely ignoring the dependencies.

Capture 2022-07-05 at 9.04.31.png

Walter Buggenhout
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July 5, 2022

There's a lot to learn, @Rob Horan. As I said: there's quite a bit of complexity. Just below the section where you selected your start/end dates, you can impact the behaviour of your dependencies as well:

Screenshot 2022-07-05 at 15.25.11.png 

Walter Buggenhout
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July 5, 2022

There are many more factors that influence the auto scheduler, as you can read in this support article. Take some time to dig into the overall documentation. Managing a program is not easy without tools, so no tools are going to automagically solve all of your real life problems either (at least not with just a wave of a wand) 😅 

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  I have been trying to understand AR for months.  It is complex, but this should be really really simple.

My dependencies were set to be sequential.  No impact.

I couldn't even try to autoschedule without a team in place. 

I'm beginning to wonder if I should just use Excel.  BigPicture might work but ever since it moved to boxes I just don't understand that tool at all.

I appreciate your help though!

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  - so I found some info which goes back to my original concerns:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/auto-schedule-issues-on-your-advanced-roadmaps-timeline/

"Only estimated issues are considered by the Auto-scheduler, regardless of whether they’re assigned to a sprint, release, or team."

Here's the problem.  Estimates are for effort.  I don't want the schedule to be based on effort.   A task that takes 2 weeks may only need a total of 2 hours of effort. 

Here's how estimates are going to work.

For a given project I will have a block of billable hours.  That's the original estimate.  That 80 hours may span months.  All of the time tracking fields in JIra (and tempo) are going to be used for timesheet purposes.

Duration needs to be completely separate.  Jira estimates should only be for time sheets, not for scheduling.

Scheduling, for my needs, should only be related to the start and end dates.

Walter Buggenhout
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July 5, 2022

Uhu @Rob Horan. I see what you mean, but be aware that you are talking about the auto scheduling feature. It tries to propose a schedule based on, well, many variables.

You are free (and probably should dare) to overrule the automatic scheduler, especially if you want to apply rules that are not easy to capture in a generic model.

While I agree that duration and estimates are totally different things, any automatic system would need some idea of size to automatically schedule items that don't have start and end dates (which the automatic system is proposing). Manually setting start and end dates does exactly what you are looking for: separating the timeline from the estimates.

Jamie Edmondson July 5, 2022

@rob , I am dealing with a very similar challenge in our program. You are correct in stating that unless you have a team assigned to a task, the auto scheduler does not seem to consider dependencies. If you have a team assigned, auto scheduler will consider the number of team members and their total weekly capacity; however, I've not found a way in AR that is granular enough to schedule - or even estimate - based on the individual resource. 

AR (based on everything I've read and tested myself) seems to consider estimates, number of team members, total weekly capacity, and the ranking in the plan itself. 

I agree - it seems like this would be a high priority feature to release for AR.

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  - manually setting the dates is what I do now, and one change can lead to over an hour of work, resetting dates.  That's what I need an automated solution to solve.

This goes back to the start, when it was mentioned that this was how AR was conceived, and it seems like that's not really the case.

I'm open to ideas that fall outside Jira at this point.  I mean, honestly, right now my plans are built in Confluence using date macros.  I considered using Jira to have issues built in advance but really, I just need a set of start and end dates somewhere.

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

@Walter Buggenhout  Sorry for tagging you again but I think I realized what COULD work, but I can't find a way to make it actually happen.

If there was a way to direct AR to a custom time field for estimates - just for one plan - then I could have an estimate that the auto scheduler could use AND I'd have my time tracking fields unaffected.

That's the trick.

Rob Horan
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July 5, 2022

I reached out to Atlassian and received official confirmation stating that AR will not work in this situation.

So.... does anyone know of any other tools?

Doesn't have to be in Jira.  I'll take what I can get.

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