Active effort and elapsed time
Objective. Define active effort versus elapsed time and use the gap between them to locate waiting and friction rather than blame people.
Active effort and elapsed time are two different clocks on the same task. The gap between them is where waiting lives, and confusing the two is how teams get blamed for delays the process caused.
See it in the demo
Definition
Active effort is the hands-on time actually spent working a task - the person's attention on the work. Elapsed time is the wall-clock time from when the task started to when it finished, including waiting, handoffs, queues and idle gaps. Active effort is almost always smaller than elapsed time.
How it is calculated
At app-logic level: active effort sums captured hands-on working time on the task or step; elapsed time is end timestamp minus start timestamp for the same task or step. Included in active effort: engaged working time above the active threshold. Excluded from active effort but inside elapsed time: waiting, queueing, handoffs and idle gaps. The active threshold and how sessions are stitched are configurable, so confirm the definitions with product - do not assume them.
How to read it and the common misread
Read the gap - elapsed minus active - as waiting and friction, the time where no one was working the item. A large gap points at process, not at the person. The common misread is treating long elapsed time as low effort or poor performance, when it often reflects waiting the person did not control. The opposite misread is reading high active effort as high output - effort is input, not result.
Where it appears
The active-versus-elapsed view underpins step time, waiting and friction in Work Understanding, and active time is captured in Employee Monitoring. Exact thresholds and session logic are SME-validation-pending; confirm with product.
Interpretation check
Active effort is hands-on input time; elapsed time is wall-clock including waiting - the gap between them is process friction, not individual under-performance.
Practical task
In the work explorer, pick one work item, note its active effort and elapsed time, compute the gap, and write one line on where in the process that waiting most likely sits.
Self-check
A task took 3 days elapsed but 40 minutes of active effort. What does that tell you?
Almost all the time was waiting - queues, handoffs, approvals - not hands-on work. The improvement target is the waiting in the process, not the person's effort. Blaming the individual would miss the real cause.
Why is high active effort not the same as high output?
Active effort is input - time spent working. Output is what was produced. Effort can be high while output is low because of rework, complexity or inefficiency, so effort is a cost signal, not a result.
What should you confirm with product about active effort?
The active-time threshold and how working sessions are detected and stitched, since these determine how much captured time counts as active effort.
Verified vs demo. Active effort and elapsed time are shown in the Work Understanding demo; active thresholds and session logic are configurable and SME-validation-pending - confirm with product.