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Measure results, not hours

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Re: Measure results, not hours

#31

Post by cmdrchris »

Apreche wrote: post #16

This seems to be common sense to everyone who is not a "boss" and unheard of to anyone who is. Find me a company that actually follows this philosophy, and sign me up. I have yet to find one real example. Here's the real problem companies face with people like me. If I only had to get the work done, I could be in the office for maybe one day a week. With all that free time, I would be able to do something on my own s…

At best, I've seen a few instances where very (very) small consulting firms may internally adhere to this and then just bill a client whatever they feel the appropriate amount(s) are for their work, split out into chunks of hours on invoices, so as to give the appearance to the clients that the billable model is in effect.

Re: Measure results, not hours

#32

Post by laaph »

Apreche wrote: post #16

This seems to be common sense to everyone who is not a "boss" and unheard of to anyone who is. Find me a company that actually follows this philosophy, and sign me up. I have yet to find one real example. Here's the real problem companies face with people like me. If I only had to get the work done, I could be in the office for maybe one day a week. With all that free time, I would be able to do something on my own s…

I worked in an office where we got the work done... and we did.

And then we were given more tasks. And more tasks. To the point that there was no way to get everything done on a deadline.

At some point I said to myself, I could pull an all-nighter, still have missed deadlines, or I could go home at 5, and have maybe one less missed deadline. It was an easy choice.

Unless you work in a place that only has need for a finite amount of work, no matter how effective you are getting things done, there will always be more things to do. If there is only a finite amount of work to be done, then an employee is not what you need - a contractor is.

(Of course a good manager will balance the number of engineers to the work load. Ours did say that he had enough to hire two more engineers -- but didn't know if he would have this much work for them next quarter.)

Re: Measure results, not hours

#33

Post by saraid216 »

shadowmint wrote: post #27

Mm... great article, but I can't help feeling it skips over the important bits. "But your boss is likely to be receptive if you politely raise the question of productivity and show you’re willing to be held accountable for results, rather than hours worked." Yeah right. The problem is that it's extremely non trivial to deconstruct your assumptions and social behaviour. Even if your boss/manager/whatever is clued up a…

His boss should really pick up on that and figure out some way to communicate it. Mentioning casually at a status meeting that this person gets in early and as a result leaves early and that this is a good thing would work: it's subtle acknowledgement and approval which I'd guess is enough.

Re: Measure results, not hours

#34

Post by saraid216 »

oconnor0 wrote: post #8

"By emphasizing results rather than hours, I'm able to get home at 7 p.m. for dinner with my family nearly every night" And, here, I assumed that by emphasizing results he meant getting home around 5...

I suspect he meant "be home at", rather than "get home at".

Re: Measure results, not hours

#35

Post by lsc »

laaph wrote: post #32
Apreche wrote: post #16

This seems to be common sense to everyone who is not a "boss" and unheard of to anyone who is. Find me a company that actually follows this philosophy, and sign me up. I have yet to find one real example. Here's the real problem companies face with people like me. If I only had to get the work done, I could be in the office for maybe one day a week. With all that free time, I would be able to do something on my own s…

I worked in an office where we got the work done... and we did. And then we were given more tasks. And more tasks. To the point that there was no way to get everything done on a deadline. At some point I said to myself, I could pull an all-nighter, still have missed deadlines, or I could go home at 5, and have maybe one less missed deadline. It was an easy choice. Unless you work in a place that only has need for a f…

how much you work at a salary job is a constant negotiation between the worker and the boss.

It sounds like your boss screwed the pooch on that one, though. Killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

It's a hard negotiation, really, for both parties, as different people function differently at different stress levels. But yeah; most bosses optimize for but-in-seat time rather than for actual productivity, which, of course, does not increase shareholder value or employee happiness; It's bad for everyone.

Personally, I think it's a symptom of 'optimizing for appearances' - the managers run the companies, sure, but they don't own them, so they don't care about real productivity, only about the perception of productivity.

Re: Measure results, not hours

#36

Post by saraid216 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #23

How do you square this sort of mindset with the well-known demands of entrepreneurship? In other words, if it's possible to do great work in short amounts of time, why do most successful entrepreneurs end up working very long hours to make their companies succeed? If it's possible to check out at 5pm M-F and still excel, why do investors look for the highest possible levels of commitment from the founders in whom the…

> In other words, if it's possible to do great work in short amounts of time, why do most successful entrepreneurs end up working very long hours to make their companies succeed?

Because there's a lot to do and very few people around to do it. One of the distinguishing aspects of a startup is that the initial team is very nearly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of things that need doing, but don't yet have the revenue to hire people and distribute that load properly. No founder is sitting around at 3pm going, "Well, now what do I do for the next two hours?" They're going to sneak in ten minutes of product development, answer a dozen emails, wash dishes in the office kitchen, whatever.

Once a company stabilizes (meaning that its revenue stream is mostly predictable and dependable), it can ramp up employee count to the point where the load is more sanely distributed and there's no longer a reason to work very long hours because everything is properly parallelized.

Re: Measure results, not hours

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Apreche wrote: post #16

This seems to be common sense to everyone who is not a "boss" and unheard of to anyone who is. Find me a company that actually follows this philosophy, and sign me up. I have yet to find one real example. Here's the real problem companies face with people like me. If I only had to get the work done, I could be in the office for maybe one day a week. With all that free time, I would be able to do something on my own s…

[deleted]

Re: Measure results, not hours

#38

Post by knighthacker »

shadowmint wrote: post #27

Mm... great article, but I can't help feeling it skips over the important bits. "But your boss is likely to be receptive if you politely raise the question of productivity and show you’re willing to be held accountable for results, rather than hours worked." Yeah right. The problem is that it's extremely non trivial to deconstruct your assumptions and social behaviour. Even if your boss/manager/whatever is clued up a…

I think bottom line, don't work at a place that cares more about the amount of hours you work as opposed to the results that you produce. Life is too short for this shit. There are a lot of job opportunities in companies and teams that understand results and care less about even showing up to the office as long as they are highly productive.

Re: Measure results, not hours

#39

Post by Evbn »

cmdrchris wrote: post #31
Apreche wrote: post #16

This seems to be common sense to everyone who is not a "boss" and unheard of to anyone who is. Find me a company that actually follows this philosophy, and sign me up. I have yet to find one real example. Here's the real problem companies face with people like me. If I only had to get the work done, I could be in the office for maybe one day a week. With all that free time, I would be able to do something on my own s…

At best, I've seen a few instances where very (very) small consulting firms may internally adhere to this and then just bill a client whatever they feel the appropriate amount(s) are for their work, split out into chunks of hours on invoices, so as to give the appearance to the clients that the billable model is in effect.

This is clearly fraud and worth suing and winning over. Charging standard "shop hours" like a mechanic, in advance, is one thing, but just making up a price afterward and pretending it was hours worked?

Re: Measure results, not hours

#40

Post by Evbn »

saraid216 wrote: post #34
oconnor0 wrote: post #8

"By emphasizing results rather than hours, I'm able to get home at 7 p.m. for dinner with my family nearly every night" And, here, I assumed that by emphasizing results he meant getting home around 5...

I suspect he meant "be home at", rather than "get home at".

That was not the source of confusion.
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