231–240 of 339 posts
Other people's experiences are likely much different - I am just relating my own experience.
Do I like working remotely? Yes! I also really like being able to mostly work the hours I like, when it is most convenient for me.
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Not saying that you are wrong, but none of the studies you quote was done in the last five years, and most of them are actually more than a decade old. Actually - several of them are. For example: "Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duratio…
2006 happened 7 years ago. Time flies.
Today's homo sapiens brains function the same way as in 2006. Productivity of mental workers responds to disruptions in the same way as in 2006. A large majority of programmers and other people working now in IT are the very same people that were analyzed in 2006.
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I think after reading the tone of your response I can determine that I would have a difficult time working with this type of personality. As a developer interruptions are a huge productivity drag. I have to stop whatever I'm doing, answer your question, and figure out where I left off and get back into the right mode to program which can take a while. Right now I have a few work-from-home days a week and I find I'm e…
Like a few others who have responded, you're not seeing the forest through the trees. That's somewhat alarming for a group of people who are supposed to be creative problem solvers. Team productiviy > your individual productivity. It's that simple. Do you think your team members interrupt you just for the fun of it? No, they interrupt you because they need your help to accomplish something. As a resource to the team,…
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I think after reading the tone of your response I can determine that I would have a difficult time working with this type of personality. As a developer interruptions are a huge productivity drag. I have to stop whatever I'm doing, answer your question, and figure out where I left off and get back into the right mode to program which can take a while. Right now I have a few work-from-home days a week and I find I'm e…
Like a few others who have responded, you're not seeing the forest through the trees. That's somewhat alarming for a group of people who are supposed to be creative problem solvers. Team productiviy > your individual productivity. It's that simple. Do you think your team members interrupt you just for the fun of it? No, they interrupt you because they need your help to accomplish something. As a resource to the team,…
Team productivity is the sum of individual productivity though. Having all of the individual productivity disrupted is going to lead to lower team productivity.
I think Joel said it best 13 years ago: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html
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"Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds).
Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff. "
(lightly edited copy of my usual plea for evidence on this topic ;-) Pretty much all the evidence (rather than anecdote) I can find shows that co-located teams in a single team room environment are the most productive - all other things being equal. (And I'm saying this as somebody who spends a lot of their time working from home, and talking to other folk over Skype, etc. There are reasons for telecommuting - person…
A reduction in health risks and distractions are two of the noted benefits. If productivity depends highly on teamwork, telecommuting may not be ideal, but it should improve individual productivity for the right employees.
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When it comes down to research vs. your subjective experience influenced by your personal preference and opinion, why would I put more stock in the later?
I don't think that's being fair to the parent post's point. They're implying that the research, by focussing only on a productivity metric, may miss out on job satisfaction issues that cause top performers to leave. They're not contradicting the research, just pointing out that the issue is complex.
As a management major (do regret) I was taught that it only works when there are clear definitions and metrics for success, especially routine tasks that require less creativity. I don't see that backed well by modern research, and I wish we had better research.
I also feel the anger people (especially programmers, it seems) feel about not being able to work remotely is misplaced. If it upsets you that they want people to work face-to-face, you're probably not a good fit for the company culture that requires it anyway.
We switched from almost always in the office to a ROWE (Results Only Work Evironment) and now 90%+ of the time we all work from home. According to a company survey of the people in the ROWE, devs feel more productive, and managers feel there has been no change in productivity. I think this is because we are measuring productivity in different ways. Managers measure productivity over a week or month, which has stayed…
That's awesome terminology. I work from home now, but I had a test run in my previous job that was almost always in the office. I ruptured my Achilles and was unable to move about. I felt more pressure (in a good way) to get stuff done, because I felt that i could delay my return to the office longer if it was crystal clear that I was being productive.
I found the same odd productivity boost working a week out of 2 week vacation on the beach in NC. Surprisingly, I was able to focus a lot better since i wanted to have lunch with the family and go for a swim and also because I knew I wanted to stop at 5PM for some beach time. I should clarify that I wanted to stop and feel good about myself that I accomplished a day of work.
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My main drivers for working remotely are what you just described and eliminating commuting time. I find I'm much more productive and happy without those inconveniences in my life.
Yeah, I get that. You are more productive. You are interrupted less. You can focus more easily. You are happier at home. Now, where's the consideration for everyone else on your team? That seems to be the one thing missing from all these counter arguments, yet it's the crux of the matter.
I'd like to respond to some of your other comments:
If I had to endure a culture where this was acceptable:
> Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello???
I wouldn't work there for very long. This mentality of "butts must be in chairs" flies against the notion that software engineers are professionals and should be treated as such. This nagging is a great way to lead to a broken, angry engineer.
That said, I agree with your premise:
> Team productiviy > your individual productivity. It's that simple. Do you think your team members interrupt you just for the fun of it? No, they interrupt you because they need your help to accomplish something.
But there is a fine line between nagging and actual necessary interruptions that is deepened by remote work. Asking a professional why haven't they responded to the email you sent 5 minutes ago, to me, is crossing the line and if everyone on the team has to endure that kind of behavior then individual and team productivity will both suffer. I've experienced being micromanaged and it's terrible and it's definitely not conducive to my productivity. The rest of the team seemed the same way and thus the team productivity suffered as well. Creative thinkers need uninterrupted time to plan, think, and execute.
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How does one acquire the connections to be called in as this type of engineer?
1. Time 2. Networking, Networking, Networking 3. Be willing to talk about yourself a lot. 4. Act Confident in the face of uncertainty.