> but it needs to go thru channels at some point, once the initial contact is made, otherwise the layers in the reporting structure are never aware of any extra

> but it needs to go thru channels at some point, once the initial contact is made, otherwise the layers in the reporting structure are never aware of any extra hours spent reporting a problem. This is where ticketing systems come in handy. They both track the work performed as well as the time spent - many (Zendesk and Service Now at least) have a timer that starts when you open the ticket in the web client, and records that time whenever you submit an update. The mantra is "if it's not in a ticket, then it didn't happen". Between a kanban/scrum planning system and the ticket system, your people managers should be drowning in data about what you're doing and how long it's taking. Zendesk has a full section of its site to analyze metrics, and at my last job individual engineers discussed their metrics daily. This eliminates the need to CC your manager while obviating that whole communication. The hard part is keeping everyone in the system, and constantly pulling people back from email to tickets. Having a pretty web interface helps a lot.