TI-02
In Progress with Zero Time Spent
Time Tracking Integrity
Default severity: medium
EstimationProcessMetricsEffort
What it detects
An issue in an active In Progress status has zero hours logged against it — the issue was transitioned to active but no actual work has been recorded. Either the work is happening without logging (invisible effort) or the transition was premature/incorrect.
Detection formula
IF issue.status IN config.workflow.active_statuses AND SUM(worklog.time_spent, issue) = 0 AND time_in_active_status > config.ti.zero_spend_grace_hours // default: 8h (1 working day) THEN FLAG in_progress_zero_spend IF time_in_active_status > config.ti.zero_spend_critical_days * 24 // default: 3 days THEN CRITICAL — 3 days In Progress with no work logged Correlate with SG-04 (zero effort issue) and TM-01 (possible misclassified bug not genuinely worked)Examples in practice
- A team shows an issue in an active in progress status has zero hours logged against it while active statuses is set to Configured per workspace.
- Example signal: An issue in an active In Progress status has zero hours logged against it — the issue was transitioned to active but no actual work has been recorded.
Suggested response
Fix time-tracking states so remaining, spent, and status align with reality.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
An issue in an active In Progress status has zero hours logged against it — the issue was transitioned to active but no actual work has been recorded. Either the work is happening without logging (invisible effort) or the transition was premature/incorrect.
Why it matters
When "In Progress with Zero Time Spent" keeps appearing, the team is signalling a repeatable process gap. Left unexamined, the pattern hides where work really stalls and makes improvement metrics harder to trust.
What you can achieve
Fix time-tracking states so remaining, spent, and status align with reality.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "In Progress with Zero Time Spent" from firing again?
- What do the cited issues have in common — same root cause or same workaround?
- Who owns the two-week experiment and how will we verify on the next import?
Run this rule against your own tracker data with Flow Analyzer.