

How the Productivity Myth is Killing Your Startup - simba-hiiipower
https://medium.com/about-work/1cd9fbf8ca15

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cmdkeen
The 80:20 rule (Pareto principle) fits into this as well. You can make easy
inroads into each individual project if things are divided up - getting any of
them to a viable state however starts to bog down.

Productivity isn't linear. Especially when you mix in Tuckman's group
dynamics.

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kjackson2012
Sorry but I disagree. The best engineers are the ones that can plan reliable
estimates and hit their targets. They deserve to be highly paid, since they
create stability and predictability in an otherwise chaotic process. You don't
have to be a speedy coder in order to be highly valued. You just need to be
reliable, and the team needs to have confidence in the work that you do.

To do things like cut the number of features in half and double time
estimates, as is advocated by the author, are things that only contribute to
red tape and chaos.

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melling
So, would you rather have someone who can hit their targets all the time, or
someone who often misses but is done in half the time? For anything non-
trivial, and non-boilerplate things get complicated. People pad their
estimates and work towards that deadline.

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kjackson2012
Half the time with same amount of bugs? I consider low bug-count as part of
the requirement for "predictability", since a buggy product isn't considered
finished.

If you're talking about someone who consistently hits their deadlines with a
low bug count, vs someone who gets it done in 1/3 of the time, but 1.5x as
many bugs, I would prefer the person with the longer but more predictable
times.

As well, if the entire team is targeting 6 weeks, and the unpredictable person
finishes their task in 3 weeks, then it means that the entire schedule gets
out of joint. I would prefer the person had better insight into the task and
say it would take 3-4 weeks, so that other work could be properly scheduled.

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melling
All else being equal, of course.

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alekseyk
TLDR: how bad planning and incompetence prevents you from completing tasks on
time, news at 11.

Same old topic that has been discussed over and over before.

