Agile teams often look productive on the surface. Standups are happening, boards are moving, everyone is busy. But then the sprint ends and a large chunk of the work is still not finished.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You open your Jira board and see issues scattered across “In Progress,” “In Review,” or “Waiting for QA.” It's frustrating, because the team was working. So what happened? Where exactly did the process slow down?
This is where tracking Time in Status can become one of the most useful things your team does.
Why Time in Status Is More Than a Nice-to-Have
At first, measuring how long an issue sits in each status might seem like overkill. But it often reveals things your team didn’t realize were happening.
Instead of relying on memory or assumptions, you get actual data to help you:
- Identify where issues are spending too much time
- Catch slow or unclear handoffs
- Spot hidden bottlenecks
Plan future sprints based on what really happened, not what you expected
Here are a few common patterns teams notice once they start tracking this:
- The "In Review" column gets crowded at the end of each week
- QA only starts testing in the last days of the sprint
- Some tasks stay “In Progress” even though they’re actually blocked and no one notices
Once you can see these patterns, it becomes easier to address them.
What Real Teams Have Discovered
Case 1: Too Much Time Waiting for Review
One team realized that some issues were spending more time in “Ready for Review” than in development. The reason? Developers didn’t want to stop coding to do reviews, so they postponed them. QA ended up getting a flood of issues on Friday.
How they fixed it:
Set up a daily 30-minute “review time”
Encouraged devs to do reviews earlier in the sprint
Balanced the testing load more evenly
✅ Result: Reviews started happening faster. QA got a steadier flow. And the team felt a lot less pressure on Fridays.
Case 2: No One Noticed the Blockers
Another team committed to 10 stories. Only 4 were finished. The others were scattered across statuses like “Blocked,” “Ready for QA,” and “In Progress.”
When they looked at the time data, they saw:
Two tasks had sat in “Blocked” for three days
A few tickets were ready for review, but no one was tagged
Everyone had been focused on their own work and missed what was stuck
What they changed:
Started tagging the next person responsible in comments
Added a short daily sync focused just on blockers
✅ Result: In the next sprint, the average waiting time dropped by nearly half.
Why Manual Tracking Isn’t Worth the Effort
Some teams try to track Time in Status with spreadsheets, filters, or Jira exports. That usually doesn’t work well.
Why? Because it’s:
Easy to forget or update late
Not integrated into the real workflow
Too slow to be useful in real-time
💡 That’s why more teams are turning to tools that track it for them, right inside Jira.
A Simpler Way to See What’s Really Going On
Flow Time Report is a lightweight Jira Cloud app that automatically shows how long an issue spent in each status, who moved it, and when.
Right in the issue panel, your team can see:
- Total time in each status
- Entry and exit timestamps
- Who transitioned the issue
- Visual indicators that show whether a task is on track, at risk, or overdue
- Export options to CSV, JSON, Markdown, or plain text
No setup. No dashboards. You immediately see how work moves through your Jira workflow.
How Teams Use This in Daily Work
This kind of visibility helps improve more than just reports.
➡️ During Sprint Planning
Look at timing from past sprints to set more realistic expectations for each issue type.
➡️ At Daily Standups
If something has been “In Progress” for more than two days, bring it up. Is it stuck? Does someone need help?
➡️ In Retrospectives
Discuss issues that spent the most time in any single status. Why? And what could make that faster next time?
➡️ For Team Conversations
Use the data to support better conversations about process, collaboration, and ownership.
Not About Micromanagement — It's About Flow
Some people get nervous about tracking things like Time in Status. It might feel like someone is watching over their shoulder.
But when used well, this kind of tracking actually gives teams more control. It lets people see how the process works as a system, and where it breaks down.
In one case, a QA team mentioned they were always the last to know when something was ready. After looking at the time data, the devs started tagging them directly in comments. A small change, but it made a big difference.
You Can Try It for Free
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Flow Time Report
Flow Time Report is free for small teams (up to 10 users) and has a 30-day free trial for everyone else.
🔗 Try it on the Atlassian Marketplace
If your team cares about improving how work flows, cutting down stress, and finishing what gets started, this is a good place to begin.
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