Mimic External Contributor
Description
Sometimes, components of our project are performed by people outside of our immediate team (other groups, vendors, etc). Using EBS to help predict when they'll be done (based on their past performance) would really help.
Problem
Currently, I have three options to deal with this:
- Set a milestone based on delivery from the external contributor
- Adds a LOT of complexity to figure out what work really can't start until after delivery from the external contributor
- Doesn't match the way it seems FB should be used. This essentially just creates the equivalent of task dependencies that we've argued we don't want to have in FB.
- Guess at EBS - Try to extrapolate how the external contributor will impact our timelines based on their past performance.
- Undermines confidence in the tool. (Trust EBS except in this scenario - then trust me)
- What's the point of EBS if we still wind up using our gut to guess?
- Get everyone in the system
- Some groups are still just warming up to the idea of FB. Forcing them in because I need them to be in there isn't going to win anyone over.
- Trying to force someone in would just entrench them in their current viewpoint and build barriers for wider adoption.
- If anything, this would be percieved as a weakness in the application.
- We would never be able to get vendors into our intranet to update/manage cases.
- Some groups are still just warming up to the idea of FB. Forcing them in because I need them to be in there isn't going to win anyone over.
Suggestion
- Allow someone to create a vu (virtual user) or a licensed user if vu would break pricing model.
- Have a mechanism where that person could enter Estimate/Elapsed data on behalf of the vu.
- This would cover vendors who give granular estimates (2 hours) or broad estimates/durations (2 months). EBS adjusts for this kind of stuff very nicely.