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Work Dynamics Indexes

A group of metrics describing how work was distributed: regularly, in bursts, or according to an assumed pace.

All the metrics in this group are always calculated for a single participant, relative to their own activity in the selected period. The value on the project or team view is the average of the values of the participants of that project or team who had at least one increment in that period (participants with no activity at all are not included in this average; the full mechanism is in the "Aggregation level" section at the bottom of the page). This is why the same participant has exactly one value of each of these metrics in a given period, regardless of whether you look at it on their own Participant page or in the participant table on the page of the project or team they belong to.

Effort versus Throughput

These two names sound similar but measure something different, and it is worth telling them apart right away: Effort is the size of work (Calories per business day), Throughput is the frequency of work (the number of Increments per business day). A single, large commit once every few days gives high Effort and low Throughput, while many small commits every day give the opposite.

Activity​

A composite score of overall activity (0-100%): the arithmetic mean of the four metrics below (Presence, Effort, Throughput, Work Rhythm). It is the only metric in this group visible in tables by default, and the default sort criterion for the project table on Overview.

Same result, different causes

Activity is an average of four different aspects of work, so the same score can hide very different situations: a high score coming purely from Effort and Throughput with low Presence (work in dense bursts, with long breaks) looks different from the same score built from four equal components. It is worth treating Activity as a starting point for sorting and comparing, and eventually checking the four components separately to understand exactly what raised or lowered it.

Presence​

What percentage of Business Days in the selected period had any activity at all. 100% if someone worked every business day.

A measure of attendance regularity

This is a metric of attendance regularity, not of the amount of work: one small commit a day gives a higher Presence than one huge commit once a week, even though the latter may represent more real work (see Effort below). Low Presence with high Effort usually means work concentrated in a few days, not an absence of work altogether. In that case it is worth checking Work Rhythm and Days Between Increment, to tell a deliberate way of working (e.g. code review once every few days) apart from a real break.

Effort​

How intense the work was relative to the assumed target: Calories per Business Day, against a target of 50 Calories per day. Reaching or exceeding the target gives 100%.

Calculation across the full period

Effort calculates the average across all Business Days in the period, not only the days on which there actually was activity, so a low Presence (many days with no work at all) pulls Effort down even if the days someone did work were very intense. That is why a low Effort does not always mean "unproductive work": it can simply mean "work concentrated in few days". The target of 50 Calories per day is fixed and does not depend on the project or the role. When comparing people with very different kinds of work (for example a senior mostly doing code review vs. someone writing a lot of new code), this difference is worth keeping in mind.

Throughput​

How regularly Increments were produced relative to the assumed target. The target depends on the selected Calories Type: for "Coding" it counts at least 1 code increment per business day, for "Documentation" at least 10 documentation increments per business day, and for "Total" both conditions together.

Increment frequency, not size

Effort takes into account the size of changes (through Calories), while Throughput only the frequency of Increments, so one huge commit a day and ten small commits a day can produce the same Throughput score, despite a completely different work profile. A low Throughput with a high Effort often points to a working style with rare, large commits instead of frequent, small commits. This does not have to be a problem, but it is worth telling apart when comparing people or teams with different commit habits.

Work Rhythm​

How evenly activity was spread out over time, without long breaks interspersed with bursts. The more even the gaps between consecutive active days, the higher the score.

Effect of irregularity on the score

Work Rhythm penalizes irregularity, even if the total amount of work (Effort) is high: two weeks of silence followed by three days of intense coding give a low Work Rhythm, even though the total Calories can be the same as with work spread evenly across the whole period. A low score does not always mean a problem: it can reflect a natural work cycle (for example a sprint ending with intensive branch merging). It is best read together with Days Between Increment, which show the same irregularity in concrete days, not in percentage points.

Business Days​

The number of business days in the selected period: excluding weekends and holidays defined in the organization's work calendar. This is the base against which Presence and Effort are calculated.

Productive and non-productive days​

Productive Days: the number of Business Days on which there was any activity. Non Productive Days: the remaining Business Days with no activity at all, that is, the difference between Business Days and Productive Days.

Days Between Increment​

The average number of Business Days between consecutive active days. A lower value means more frequent activity.

Aggregation level​

For a project or team, all the metrics in this group are calculated as a plain (unweighted) average of the values of the individual participants who had at least one increment in that period. Participants with no activity in the period are not included in this average, so they do not artificially pull it down. This means that the project's or team's result speaks to "how those who worked, worked", not to what fraction of the whole team was active at all (that is shown separately by Team Capacity). An unweighted average also means that a person with one small commit in the period counts in this average the same as a person who worked full time. For teams with a large difference in individual people's involvement, it is worth keeping this in mind and checking the distribution at the level of individual participants, not only the team average.

See also​