Estimating the staff time lost to avoidable IT problems

Estimate lost staff time from recorded interruptions: count each person's unusable minutes and any distinct extra work caused by the problem. State the observation period and uncertainty. A short sample is evidence about that period, not a forecast for every future week.

Decide what counts

Define the task and IT problem first. Record the event date, start and end, people affected, workaround and any extra work afterwards. Separate unavoidable task time from waiting or rework caused by the fault.

If someone switches to another useful task during the wait, record the delay to the original job but do not count that time as lost staff capacity. Use support requests or job records to check timing where available. A staff estimate can still help; label it as an estimate rather than a timed observation.

Steps to Accurately Estimate IT Problem Impact

Calculate each event once

For each event, add unusable minutes for each affected person, then add only extra rework or help that falls outside those minutes. Count a helper's time separately only when it is not already included.

Two staff caught in one outage can each lose time. The same person's waiting and later catch-up must not be counted twice if the catch-up simply completes the delayed work.

Hypothetical example: A shared service interrupts three jobs during the observation period. On each occasion, two workers each have 12 minutes in which they cannot do useful work.

The estimate is 3 × 2 × 12 = 72 staff minutes, or 1.2 staff hours. Reduce it if someone used part of a wait productively. This is an illustration, not a measured business result.

A simple event record needs the task and date, affected people, unusable minutes for each person, distinct extra work and a note on confidence. Keep the underlying entries beside any total so another person can check the arithmetic.

Use the estimate carefully

Compare normal and busy periods if work changes across the month. Report the period, incidents and exclusions.

Avoid projecting an unusual week across a year without evidence that it is typical. Note customer or deadline effects separately; they may matter even when staff minutes are modest.

Australian Government productivity guidance suggests tracking task completion time and rework. Use the same measurement rules before and after a proposed fix, and compare similar work.

If converting time to dollars for an internal decision, show the business's labour-cost assumption separately. Time becoming available does not automatically produce a wage saving or new revenue.