
40 Hour Work Week at Microsoft - admp
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmeier/archive/2010/10/21/40-hour-work-week-at-microsoft.aspx
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droz
I'm surprised by the number of people in msdn comments rejecting the author's
proposal. I agree with the author, you can't produce a better project by
trying to cram more work that has to be done than the time that is available.

Even in our environment, people need to understand that you are in a marathon
and not a sprint. Trying to sustain 60-80hr weeks is counter productive, and
will only burn out your employees rendering them useless.

Good ideas need time to develop, if you are constantly in work-work-work mode,
you don't get the chance to reflect, think about what you are actually doing
and make good decisions.

If you want a good product, hire people who know how to pace themselves,
people that know how to accurate estimate how long it takes to deliver a
feature and most importantly, people who have a consistent vision of what the
product needs to be.

Otherwise, you are just blowing your money on a crapshoot.

~~~
byoung2
_if you are constantly in work-work-work mode, you don't get the chance to
reflect, think about what you are actually doing and make good decisions._

I was just having this conversation with a coworker. He was describing a
project he worked on last year where he put in 12 hour days for 6 months
working on a collaboration and reporting tool for interdepartmental knowledge
sharing. When it was done he went to present it to the department leaders, and
it turned out that another department had been building the exact same tool.

I think if you are always so busy writing code and meeting deadlines, you
don't have time to sit down, scope out requirements, and most importantly do
some research to see if you can get the result with less effort. Just like
when you're lost, the best thing to do is stop and ask for directions before
driving around in circles.

