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How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

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Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#41
I wrote once software to do the time tracing in reverse. I feed it with projects and how much I thought I was working on each project, and in generated timetables with accuracy needed by company for the whole week that matched the given project percentages. As a bonus, I had a generic list of comments to attach randomly to each slot.

My manager was using those generated data to figure out the project time percentages I was working on. Circle closed. All happy.

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#42
I worked for a Fortune 1000. Built a lead generation system that brings in $100M/year. They brought in time-tracking for our team, so I quit, because I hated it. The lead generation system fell apart without me, the Vice President and Project Manager in charge got fired. Nice job guys.

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#43
post #29
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I don't ever want to work for a company where my time tracking has to be so fine grained that I have to log bathroom breaks. Holy shit that sounds like a nightmare!

I actually worked for a company where they didn't allow me to have a bathroom break during working hours while I was remoting...such is life as a 53yo developer trying to make any kind of living in this industry. In fact, I had to log X keystrokes and Y LOC every hour in order to be paid for that hour...talk about being a factory worker.

That model doesn't even make sense to me.

Some of the most productive hours are LOC removed.

Counting keystrokes?

That sounds nightmarish, man.

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#47
post #29
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I don't ever want to work for a company where my time tracking has to be so fine grained that I have to log bathroom breaks. Holy shit that sounds like a nightmare!

I actually worked for a company where they didn't allow me to have a bathroom break during working hours while I was remoting...such is life as a 53yo developer trying to make any kind of living in this industry. In fact, I had to log X keystrokes and Y LOC every hour in order to be paid for that hour...talk about being a factory worker.

LOC means ‘loss of consciousness’ in my industry, but I do t think that fits. What is it here?

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#48
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually worked for a company where they didn't allow me to have a bathroom break during working hours while I was remoting...such is life as a 53yo developer trying to make any kind of living in this industry. In fact, I had to log X keystrokes and Y LOC every hour in order to be paid for that hour...talk about being a factory worker.

That model doesn't even make sense to me. Some of the most productive hours are LOC removed . Counting keystrokes ? That sounds nightmarish, man.

Gets me thinking. Back space, I can see arguments for it being +1, 0, -1 or -2?

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#49

I'm curious if anyone here has had success with more "coarsely grained" time tracking? I've found that I'd have no issues tracking my time by day or at most half-day increments, especially since for the most part that's how I end up working on things in a lot of cases (as a developer, not a manager). I feel like it would give most of the same benefits with a magnitude less work, but I haven't ever tried it out in a r…

I've had great success tracking my team, and my team's time, by the day. On the level of "I'm working on project A, project A is now done and I'm now working on project B." It's obviously imperfect but it's good enough to prevent the edge cases, e.g. somebody spending a month on something low priority.

Re: How Not to Do Time Tracking for Software Developers

#50
Sorry, couldn't get past the arrogant know-it-all writing style. "With almost anything in life, there's a right way to do things and a wrong way." Is that so, Socrates? I'd say the opposite, with almost anything in life there are complex and subtle tradeoffs and many good alternatives. Absolute, black-and-white thinking (and writing) is comforting but narrowminded.
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