What Is Worth Measuring

Time data supports a small number of good questions and a large number of bad ones. The distinction is usually whether the measure describes work or describes a person.

The measures worth having

Effort by project or product, which is what costing is for.

Effort by activity type: delivery, rework, meetings, support, administration. The split is frequently the finding.

Elapsed time against effort. A task taking twelve hours of work over three weeks is a queueing problem, and the gap is invisible if you record only effort.

Estimate against actual, at project level, tracked over time to calibrate.

Unbilled and internal effort, which billing systems omit by construction and which is usually substantial.

Hours worked against contracted hours, in aggregate, which is a welfare and a legal measure.

Six measures. Each points at a decision someone can make.

The measures that mislead

Hours recorded per person, compared between people. The data is not accurate enough to support it and the comparison measures the work assigned rather than the person.

Utilisation as a target, which has its own note and which reliably produces the behaviour it measures rather than the outcome it stands for.

Timesheet compliance rate, which measures whether forms were filled in.

Billable percentage per individual, which punishes whoever does the unbillable work everyone depends on.

Average hours per task, without the distribution, since task sizes vary by an order of magnitude.

The welfare measures

Frequently absent and among the most important.

Hours beyond contracted, by person, in aggregate reporting. The point is to notice sustained excess, not to compare people.

Rest periods, where the law prescribes minimums.

Work recorded outside normal hours, which in a remote-working context is easy to accumulate invisibly.

These are the measures the legal duty to record exists to enable, and organisations that record hours and never look at them have met the letter and missed the purpose.

Distributions, not averages

Effort data is skewed. A handful of long tasks dominate the mean.

Report the median and the spread.

Look at the shape. A distribution with a sharp spike at the expected total is a reconciliation signal rather than an operational fact.

Segment by project and by activity type, not by person.

Reporting

One page, monthly.

Effort split by project and by activity type.

Estimate against actual for anything completed.

Unbilled effort as a proportion.

Hours beyond contracted, aggregate, with a note if it is rising.

Data quality: proportion recorded within a day, proportion of totals landing exactly on the expected figure.

The last one is unusual and it is what tells you how much to trust the rest.

Elapsed against effort

A comparison that is available free and that reframes most delivery conversations.

Effort is hours worked on something.

Elapsed is calendar time from start to finish.

The gap is waiting: for review, for a decision, for someone else, for information.

In most knowledge work the gap dwarfs the effort, and it is invisible if you record only hours.

Report both per project. A task with forty hours of effort over eleven weeks is a queueing problem, and no amount of working faster addresses it.

The welfare measures nobody reports

The measures the recording duty exists to enable, and the ones most often absent.

Hours beyond contracted, as a distribution, not an average.

Rest periods computed from actuals.

Work recorded outside normal hours, which accumulates invisibly in remote settings.

Sustained patterns rather than single weeks.

Reported in aggregate to whoever allocates work.

An organisation that records hours and never notices someone at sixty a week has met the letter of the duty and missed its entire purpose.

A concrete product reference

When translating this principle into a buying test, employee productivity reports provides a concrete feature and workflow reference. Verify the relevant behaviour in a trial, retain the exported evidence and judge it against the purpose and limits described above.