It doesn't matter how big or small your organization is, managing resources is an essential part of any project. Reports are a great way to track your project/team performance and identify where you can improve.
Resource utilization is one of the most important metrics you can track in your business. Every experienced PM constantly asks the following questions: “Are we wasting resources? Is our equipment running efficiently? Are we making the best use of each employee's time?”
A lot of businesses find it difficult to measure resource utilization accurately. This post will help you to understand how to measure resource utilization and will introduce you the basics of Jira reporting.
What is Resource Utilization?
Resource utilization is defined as the extent to which an organization uses its available human, and
non-human resources (e.g. staff, materials, machines, etc.) to produce products and services. The
term resource utilization is a broader concept that encompasses efficiency, effectiveness, and capacity.
The proper utilization of resources will help the business to grow. Resource utilization is the degree to which resources are being employed to generate revenue. In other words, it's a measure of how well the company is using its various assets, including people, to generate sales and make profits.
Resource utilization includes 2 interconnected terms: resource workload and availability. It's impossible to manage resource utilization efficiently without availability/workload measuring.
Resource Utilization Reporting in Jira
With the tones of Jira projects & tasks and dozens of Jira teams, it is vital to collect the data to measure the overall performance. The key to success is not just about collecting the data but also about analyzing it for better insights and metrics.
Teams use Jira to streamline their workflow, collaborate better and reduce time spent on repetitive tasks. Jira's dashboards are designed to provide a clear overview of the project at a glance. But sometimes it is easy to miss important details, so you may try different options to keep things in stride. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every organization, but Jira provides flexibility to the users to choose from a variety of methods. Users can try different Jira reporting facilities, as well as planning/reporting add-ons for Jira. Jira provides a great variety of Jira reporting plugins.
Resource Utilization Reporting in Jira
Reporting plays a big role in the analysis. The Project Manager or Resource Manager can search and find a variety of reports. Two of them can make an actual effort. Jira provides standard reports that can cover some basic needs in project planning. It is a Time Tracking and User Workload Report. It's possible to find them in the list of reports for every project in Jira.
The Time Tracking Report displays the original and current time estimates for issues with the ongoing project. You may use this report to assess if progress on those issues is being made.
The User Workload Report shows the workload spent by one user. Manager can see the number of assigned issues and workload in days.
To create a report you need to do the following steps:
The user has to select a Specific Project in Jira and choose the Reports tab.
Choose the needed types of reports.
Select the right settings and generate the report by clicking "Next".
Jira has basic reports that cover a small part of the needs in project planning. The full spectrum of reports in the resource utilization category provides the ActivityTimeline plugin.
ActivityTimeline Resource Reports
ActivityTimeline is
a resource management add-on for Jira, and one of the most popular Jira reporting plugins. It comes with great reporting abilities that allow for monitoring team performance, creating reports, and getting insights out of data.
The app is fully synchronized with Jira so all of the data is reflected on the special planning dashboard that shows current projects with tasks, allows getting a
cross-project view for shared resources, and creates timesheets and reports.
Users can create numerous reports based on information from Jira and ActivityTimeline:
The app provides a special Jira Resource Utilization Report that helps to assess and plan the teams' workload. This, in turn, helps you to avoid overworked employees as well as prevents them from working under load. Create meaningful reports in a few clicks. Just choose the needed values, use filters, and enjoy the view:
For Managers who use Sprint the Period filter will be useful. The Week view shows the seven days period of time. The Month view provides the upcoming projects that can provide a Sprint to Sprint retrospective. The report is available on both team and individual levels to see the total available and used capacity:
The real-time resource availability reporting will make your resource planning effortless. With the help of the Resource Availability Report, you can determine how much of each resource you have available to go into new projects and how much will be required to support current work:
This report also shows the total teams' availability:
Manage Resource Utilization with ActivityTimeline
The base of Resource Utilization are people. For a thorough knowledge of the project, team, and person, managers need to check their resources regularly. Managers may redistribute, replan, or reallocate resources. Monitoring resource use can raise long-term success probabilities. After analyzing the information obtained from estimating resource usage, management might redistribute, replan, or reallocate resources.
Keeping an eye on the
resources skills and expertise level. Every project has specific requirements. Analyzing the requirements, Jira Resource Utilization Report, the job roles, and carefully selected skilled resources can significantly change the progress. Project managers must also determine if it is necessary to upskill the available resources and allocate the resources across the project if needed.
Jira reporting can be effortless with the right resource planning tools. Get a clear picture of the resource capacity with the help of the ActivityTimeline resource reports. In order to get acquainted with ActivityTimeline deeper
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