TPG FY2016Q3 Task Tracking Experiment

In early 2016, TPG experimented with Phabricator reporting via Phlogiston to see how effectively we could answer the following questions during and after the quarter (FY2016Q3, January to March 2016):

  • What did TPG complete in [the last quarter]?
    • Yes, we could answer this.
  • How much work remains until we reach our [quarterly goals]?
    • We could not answer this because we did not have a full list of our work before the end of the quarter.
      • In a later quarter we tried to do some more thorough task breakdown early in the quarter, which would have made it more feasible to answer this question, but found that our early task breakdowns mostly had to be discarded as the actual work progressed.
  • What did TPG work on? (by various categories)
    • We learned that very detailed categorization was not practical, but that some high-level categorization, into roughly five or fewer categories via Phabricator Projects, was reasonable and seemed to provide helpful answers.
  • Can [Phabricator and] Phlogiston help track and plan [a TPG-specific metric about how we split our time between TPG work and the teams we are embedded in]?
    • Not really