Key benefits

  • Automating the capture of time spent and removing the manual time entry process can improve the accuracy of the data in time tracking systems and provide Finance with an auditable way to capitalize software development costs. By utilizing a system that automatically tracks the amount of time people spend on a work item, organizations can get a realistic view of expenses incurred to develop a deliverable.
  • Ultimately, TIK is a financial tool used to translate calculated time in Agile tools to monetized costs in PPM tools. TIK supports the funding of both products and projects.

TIK for Jira

  • Agile teams use Kanban boards to visualize and track their work regardless of the Agile methodology (Kanban or Scrum) executed. TIK for Jira tracks the amount of time a work item spends on a Kanban board between Backlog and Done. Time is accrued by the owners of the work item so costs per individual can be calculated if that level of accuracy is necessary.

TIK for Finance

  • Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) tools convert time recorded automatically in TIK for Jira to money. TIK for Finance pulls data from the TIK database on a daily basis and applies all the necessary financial calculations to derive cost of delivery and expense type distribution.

TIK for Jira currently available for Jira Cloud

Introduction

Legacy operational processes require an accounting of project costs via project contributor timesheets. Modern operational processes that have shifted from funding projects to funding products also require time to be recorded against software development activities to ensure proper accounting for capitalization. Time tracking is typically a manual process where accuracy of the data is predicated on the memory of people accounting for the work they performed over a given time period.

Challenges

Garbage in, garbage out. A familiar phrase implying that a tool or system of record is only effective if the data supplied to it is accurate. Studies done by Accenture and PlanView validate that people who enter their time weekly are accurate only 48% of the time. Timesheets are the epitome of garbage in, garbage out.

Record time more often

The obvious solution to improve the accuracy of recorded time is to do it more often. Many Agile development tools support the ability for individuals to record time directly on work items when they complete work. Of course, they would have to remember the date and time they started the work to improve the accuracy of the data.

This solution works. However, there is a hidden cost associated with having people record their time this often and a direct expense to build and maintain interfaces between Agile tools where time is entered and Program and Portfolio Management (PPM) tools where time is converted into money spent.

No more timesheets

Some organizations have attempted to solve the timesheet problem by eliminating them all together. This is a great solution for organizations that do not capitalize their software development expenses. Organizations that want to financially benefit from capitalization will need to pass an audit that requires data showing the time spent against every deliverable.

Agile costing

A relatively new solution that allows organizations to benefit from capitalization without the need for timesheets is a process called “Agile costing”.
Agile costing is based on converting Story Points to time and then into money. Agile Scrum advocates for estimating work using Story Points that are typically based on the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) and relative to the team doing the work. That is, points do not translate to the same amount of time from team to team.

While gaining in popularity due to the fact that timesheets can be eliminated, it is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:

  • Agile Kanban teams do not use Story Points
  • Story Points are by definition an estimate, and thus no more accurate than a weekly timesheet
    • For example, Story Points are rarely updated to reflect reality after work is completed. That is, a mis-estimated work item that was initially estimated as 2 points is rarely updated to 13 points when the work is completed
  • Translating Story Points into time requires a very complicated translator to convert Story Points into hours because Story Points are relative to each team
    • Organizations that attempt to standardize how a Story Point translates to actual time makes using Story Points irrelevant

Pricing

  • TIK for Jira: Available in the Jira Cloud app Marketplace based on Atlassian’s tiered pricing program
  • TIK for Finance: Contact us for details regarding our user-tiered pricing.

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