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Making 20% Time Work

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Re: Making 20% Time Work

#101

Post by douche »

onion2k wrote: post #78
codeonfire wrote: post #54

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that y…

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you think the way to advance your career is to spend 20% of your time working on unsanctioned side projects in work time, writing code that will be owned by your employer that you can't publish legally without permission, all the while taking longer to do your assigned tasks and looking like you slack off for a day a week? And you think that if that gets you fired you'll move u…

If you can't find 20% of your wasted time in your normal day-to-day work to direct to something more useful, then you are in the 1% most productive office workers.

Or you need to invest in automating some of your grunt work, so you can do the same work in less time. Laziness is a virtue.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#102

Post by areyouforreal »

codeonfire wrote: post #54

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that y…

What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#103

Post by areyouforreal »

codeonfire wrote: post #54

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that y…

What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#104

Post by sheepmullet »

preordained wrote: post #66
codeonfire wrote: post #54

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that y…

Rinse and repeat? I could be missing something, but are we saying we should adopt the mentality that we are too good for any job we might find ourselves in? It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole... I could be misreading, but your tone seems to veer more towards self-centeredness than empowerment.

> It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit

Why? When you are knee deep in solving problems for an organisation you will often have good insights.

If you can't take the time to investigate these insights then you wind up a low productivity grunt.

Unlike the OP I am upfront about needing control over my workflow. If you need to micro-manage... no problem... I'll find a new job.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#105

Post by sheepmullet »

areyouforreal wrote: post #102
codeonfire wrote: post #54

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that y…

What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.

If only everyone within most large organisations could do this!

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#106

Post by mrow84 »

developer2 wrote: post #47
nowarninglabel wrote: post #19

We have successfully pulled off 20% for 5+ years now at Kiva, doing some of the things suggested here. However, the key thing we do is actually make the 20% be a full two-week sprint, it just happens every 5th sprint. That way, you can have the time to do some planning, suggesting, and documentation before setting out to build something and you get the full amount of time you needed to build it. We purposefully do tr…

If a developer places an idea up requiring only 4 points, can they pin their own 4 points to it and work on it alone without having to answer to anyone? The entire point of the 20% concept to me is that I get to work on my own idea . I do not like your version that makes it a popularity contest between developers and their separate ideas. Most of the fun that can be found in 20% is the lack of constraints and oversig…

Out of interest, could you elaborate on what is it about agile methods that you dislike/despise?

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#108

Post by this__guy »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #81
sqldba wrote: post #68

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the compan…

I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to wor…

You cannot structure or manage idea time. Actually a lot of successful open source projects were started by single persons in college. Many sponsored or managed projects progress slowly, because management kills off all creativity and drive.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#109

Post by Rygu »

Creative processes actually CAN be well-organized and fun at the same time. Just look at hackathons, which teams get stuck halfway and which teams are productive and take the prize home?

If you only care about code and learning new APIs, that's your right. (I'd say do it at home.) If you want to ship something real with 20% company time? Get your project organized.

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