Time estimation and logged time
Hello all. Does anybody have any best practice around estimating time to a task and then using a report / analyse board, to see if what you estimated and the logged time matched?
We are trying to get better at estimating how long a job would take by looking at what the person logged ours in after in Wrike. We have an estimated time custom field as well on tasks. Thank you 😄
Hi Robin Pepper,
we are using custom fields for this purpose. As we implemented this before Wrike analytics we use external dataprocessing.
We have a custom field effort project proposal which is filled when submitting the project proposal and which remains the same until an official project change request. This is our approved project effort. Then we use the effort from Wrike for the daily buiseness. We implemented a bot via API which copies the effort project proposal time into the effort.If the task has subtasks the effort in the subtasks (they do not have effort project proposal) is subtracted from the parent task effort. So the parent task shows the available effort approved for this project. Then you can extract the numbers of booked times, effort and effort project proposal via API and compare the numbers in any tools you want and bring it together with other data (e.g. from finacne department) or you use it as reporting numbers to finance.
Also you can use these three numbers in Wrike to calculate a risk value (e.g. (effort available in the task - booked times) / effort available in the task or if you asume you have only one assignee on a task, as we do normaly you can calculate (effort available in the task - booked times) / (8h + days remaining until due date) giving you a number if the task is doable in a normal working day for a person). This caluclations you can doo in custom fields.
Perhaps you can achieve the same now with Wrike analytics, but as we are combining data with other data sources the export is the way we use.
Hi Robin - we don't have Analyze and we do not use timesheets in Wrike for time tracking (because we have other systems not integrated yet) - BUT... one thing that may help as well, is if you are standardizing your work in blueprints and request forms - make sure that effort is enabled as you can do a lot with that data (as Sven mentions) - with custom calculated fields, etc.
For example, if Task A is set to Daily Effort 4 hrs per day and assigned to 2 people (job roles) in the blueprint with 5 days duration = total effort is 40 hrs. When Task A is used in a real project, and the duration changes (based on the scope) to 10 Days duration, effort (ie, the estimate) will also automatically calculate to 80 hrs. This means you now have the first data point for building reports to calculate the variance you are looking for - Time Estimated (effort) - Time logged. Hope this helped a little bit!
Hi Robin! In my previous job, we tracked our timesheets in Wrike and we created a dedicated space to track time spent for tasks. We also created custom fields for billable or non-billable, and allocated effort. Then cross tag the existing tasks into the timesheet space. Dedicated space for timesheet gives the Managers an overhead shot for the total allocated effort vs. time spent for every project (in table view). Ditto with Sherrie on the calculated delta between allocated effort and actual time spent on the task.
We have quite a few departments in Wrike. I, personally, don't track time estimations with the nature of our projects but our development staff tracks their time by utilizing custom fields, calculations and automation. I don't have specifics but they find this very useful and easy to do.
Thank you all - some great suggestions here! I think it's difficult to track previously estimated time as we change the effort (for example if a job requires more work) so it's a case of maybe having a custom field to track the original time 😀