Agile working with Redmine HRM: Sprint planning with part-time employees

Redmine HRM / Workload

How the HRM Plugin supports agile working

The HRM plugin is not an agile framework. It does provide the tools to plan agile teams based on their capacity, above all in sprint planning and in fine-tuning resources.

It fits into an agile working process and covers central features of agile methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban or SAFe. It suits:

• Self-organizing teams with regular planning and feedback cycles
• Transparent task distribution
• Flexible reacting to changes instead of rigid plans
• Focus on functional results instead of micromanagement

Agile requirements the HRM Plugin supports

Sprint planning using versions:
Planning over versions with clearly defined time frame.
Capacity-oriented task allocation:
The resource view shows the workload of individual Redmine users (available hours per user).
Part-time, vacation, availability:
Consideration through working-hour calendar and attendance/absence entries.
Recognizing overloads:
Early warning system for overload and deadline problems.
Transparency for the team:
Each person can see their own workload and can also counteract it accordingly.

Practice example: Sprint planning with the HRM Plugin for Redmine

An agile development team plans a two-week sprint. The resources are limited, because some team members work part-time or are on vacation. During this time the project members work exclusively for this project. What does a realistic plan for such a team look like?

Preconditions for a realistic capacity planning

Tickets in the project should fulfill the following conditions:

• Estimated workload is maintained
• Ticket is assigned to one user (no group)
• Assigned issue status is not excluded from resource planning
• Version Sprint 18 with start-/end-date is defined (Reporting Plugin Configuration Option Use date in Tickets is activated (/settings/plugin/redmine_reporting?tab=versions).)
• Each team member has a working-hour calendar with their actual workdays/hours assigned
• Absences are recorded via the HRM plugin (in our example: Lisa Reuter, 2 approved vacation days)

Sprint planning in Redmine is done using versions

The illustration shows the sprint view (sprint 18) with Burndown-Chart (Reporting plugin function for the version view). The tickets assigned to the sprint all contain a time estimate so that they can be included in the planning.

Sprint data are as follows:

• Duration: 2 weeks
• The version assigned to the tickets is: Sprint 18
• Number developers: 3 (Anna, Max, Lisa)
• Planning view used in the Redmine project: Resources - Planned hours

What does the project-related workload view Planned hours show?

New in v4.6.0: the reworked resource view.

• Max Klein has a good workload for the first week of sprint 18, but is not overbooked. He works full-time and can take on additional tasks for the second week.
• Anna Bauer also has buffers, for example for reviews or to support others in the team.
• Lisa Reuter works part-time on three days a week. The view keeps her vacation days free and distributes the planned hours of her tickets over the remaining working days. On the last working day of sprint 18 the view already shows a problem: her workload in this sprint is too high and the sprint goal is at risk. Redistributing the tasks now counteracts this early enough.

The HRM plugin detects and visualizes planning conflicts

• The HRM plugin detects planning conflicts continuously, as tickets and availability change
• The resource overview is live and updates automatically
• If a ticket is estimated with more hours than the assigned person has available, a warning symbol appears in that person’s column
• The difference also shows up graphically
• The expandable box Hints / problems in the resource assignment holds a message such as “Assignment too high on 08.08.: maximum assignment of 5 hours exceeded by 6 hours”

What can the project management do?

• Redistribute tickets to users with free capacity
• Recalculate the sprint (e.g. adjust ticket estimation, divide large tasks into smaller work packages, assign them differently, etc.)
• Recognize bottlenecks at an early stage and eliminate them before an overload occurs

With the resource view you plan a full sprint based on real working times and availabilities. The project management immediately has:

• an overview of overloads
• the option to distribute the work fairly
• the certainty that vacation and part-time work are part of the plan
• more planning security for the intended project goal

The plugin is part of the Business-Class Bundle and also works with our other plugins. Availability Resource planning / workload utilization: Part of current version