>Productivity went down because an engineer spent 2 weeks
Yes, that is something you have to be careful of. In this case, as I mentioned I believe, it was done in spare time, not full time, and it was mostly the AI that spent 2 weeks, I'd guess he probably spent a day or two, and the testers probably spent another day (however, I think this ended up coinciding with our quarterly "full site" test, so it would have happened anyway).
Yes, that is something you have to be careful of. In this case, as I mentioned I believe, it was done in spare time, not full time, and it was mostly the AI that spent 2 weeks, I'd guess he probably spent a day or two, and the testers probably spent another day (however, I think this ended up coinciding with our quarterly "full site" test, so it would have happened anyway).