# Blocked time: avoid double-counting overlapping waits

Illustrative planning brief; no automatic product import.

Synthetic example: A missing input blocks work from hour 10 to 14. A permission issue also blocks it from 12 to 15 on the same day.

## Decision

Report five elapsed blocked hours, while preserving two blocking causes and their receiving owners.

## Owned work

- Check the interval log
  - Owner role: Task owner
  - Acceptance evidence: Both start/end pairs use one day and timezone; ends follow starts.
- Merge overlapping coverage
  - Owner role: Coordinator
  - Acceptance evidence: The union is [10,15), five hours, with both cause labels preserved.
- Confirm each recorded end
  - Owner role: Receiving owners
  - Acceptance evidence: Each cause owner confirms its recorded end condition and retains the evidence for the retrospective log.

## Workflow

1. Write blocking starts and ends as half-open intervals.
2. Sort and merge overlapping intervals before adding lengths.
3. Retain causes and owners separately from the elapsed total.

## Judgment

This worked policy counts elapsed blocked coverage, not lost person-hours. Open intervals require a named observation checkpoint.


## Worked reporting note

Blocked coverage: five elapsed hours. Missing-input and permission causes remain separately owned records.


## Working artifact

- Observed / Two closed intervals on one clock / Supports their five-hour union.
- Unknown / Active effort or financial impact / Do not multiply the coverage into a cost claim.
- Next check / Confirm the end condition with each receiving owner / Do not close a cause because a different cause cleared.


## Workflow questions

### Why not add four and three hours?

The two intervals overlap for two hours. Adding their lengths would count that period twice.

### What does half-open mean here?

Include the start and stop at the end; touching intervals do not create extra duration.

### What if both causes have different owners?

Keep both cause records. Merging time coverage does not merge responsibility.

## Product connection

Use this manual measurement rule as context when planning or reviewing owned work in TeamBoostAI. Confirm the fields and reports available in your account; the worksheet is not imported automatically.

Confirm account availability before adopting this manual outline.


## Worked measurement study

All example records are synthetic; manual worksheet, no automatic import.

### Inspect the invented records

Cause or union | Start hour | End hour | Elapsed hours
--- | --- | --- | ---
Missing input | 10 | 14 | 4
Permission issue | 12 | 15 | 3
Merged coverage | 10 | 15 | 5

### Derivation

Individual lengths are 4 and 3; overlap is 2. Union = 4 + 3 − 2 = 5 elapsed hours, not 7.

Blocked coverage: five elapsed hours. Missing-input and permission causes remain separately owned records.

Calculator inputs and convention: {"mode": "union", "values": "10,14;12,15", "unit": "elapsed hours"}

### Evidence boundary

Observed / Two closed intervals on one clock / Supports their five-hour union.
Unknown / Active effort or financial impact / Do not multiply the coverage into a cost claim.
Next check / Confirm the end condition with each receiving owner / Do not close a cause because a different cause cleared.

### Method references

The Kanban Guide, May 2025: https://kanbanguides.org/the-kanban-guide/2025.5/ — Clock and work-item definitions; examples and local rules are our own.