

Counting hours doesn't make sense - swombat
http://danieltenner.com/posts/0002-counting-hours-doesnt-make-sense.html

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webwright
I'm going to disagree (if I didn't, I guess I'd just shut down RescueTime and
cry!).

How much time you spend is correlative with productivity. Most of my really
productive weeks are where I log an unusual number of hours in my dev
environment. I think the relationship between # of hours and productivity is
especially strong when:

A) Looking at a longer period of time (certainly there are raredays where
you're in TextMate all day but don't get anything meaningful done, just as
there are days where you destroy a critical problem in 30 minutes)

B) You're comparing to yourself. Comparing your work-month to mine isn't very
meaningful. Comparing a month of my data the middle of our YC experience
versus a month of data in the middle of our fundraising efforts vs a recent
month of data is interesting.

But I also think that the sheer # of hours is a really interesting measure of
engagement, motivation, and __workload __. If you're only really working for 2
hours a day, chances are the issue is with that rather than with your ability
to be productive.

~~~
lunaru
B is the key here.

The problem is that number of hours is too often thrown around as a comparison
between two different people.

I'd argue that arises from the more frequently asked question of "Is employee
A more productive than employee B?" rather than "was employee A more
productive on Tuesday or Thursday?"

Employers certainly ask the first question when they're looking for salaries
to dump.

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ryanwaggoner
Agreed, and I think we all know this, but none of the substitute questions he
proposes approach anything resembling an objective measure.

~~~
swombat
I would say, the only valid objective measure is results.

That, interestingly, is what a couple of psychologists tried and succeeded in
implementing at Best Buy, of all places. See:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE>

They seem to have been very happy with the results they got from that.

If you want to evaluate results, why measure hours?

~~~
lennysan
What does "results" mean in knowledge work? It's impossible to know whether
the results could have been achieved faster or better if you had indeed
measured hours. I'm not saying measuring hours is the only thing to watch, but
you can't simply track a undefined concept like "results".

~~~
swombat
You mentioned further down that you're a manager.. results are whatever you've
agreed with your team is the "deliverable".

So you might agree on having a set of bugs fixed, for instance, or agree on
getting a piece of functionality implemented. I'm not an expert on ROWE, but
as I understand it, the key is that you agree on results which you (as a
manager) are satisfied with and which the team (who will produce those
results) is satisfied with.

Then, you don't care about how many hours they work. At the agreed time, you
expect the result that you agreed on. If it's there, no problem, move on to
the next bit of work that needs to happen. If it's not there, then you can sit
down with your team and figure out why (but avoid the all-too-easy accusation
that "they didn't spend enough time on it").

Apparently this technique (along with a set of workplace practices that
actively discouraged managers from trying to figure out whether their teams
were actually working or doing something else) worked really well for Best
Buy.

~~~
lennysan
Since with engineers you rely on them estimate how long things will take, and
the last thing you want to do is keep nagging them to decrease that time, it's
easy for engineers in a non-startup company to lose the sense of "urgency" and
get complacent with the estimates, adding buffers to make sure they are never
late. How would you try to keep ever increasing estimates?

~~~
swombat
Ultimately, you have to work with people you can trust. If they trust that you
won't suddenly spring some bad surprise on them, and if you trust that they
won't artificially pad their estimates and slack off (which is very unlikely
unless you're working with some really bad apples), there shouldn't be a
problem of padded estimates.

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djahng
Basically, we need to relate working _effectively_ with working _efficiently_.
Another way to look at it is: is the person that spends 10 hours a day sitting
at their desk any more dedicated than the person who spends 6? The person who
spends 6 hours a day at their desk can potentially produce more results if
they focus on effectiveness and efficiency (Parkinson's Law in effect),
especially if the "dedicated" 10-hour-a-day person spends 5 hours checking
email.

It's also a generational issue that everyone goes through at some point. The
young people think the old people are "dinosaurs", and the old people think
the young people don't have any work ethic. The focus should be on results,
not hours spent.

~~~
wallflower
> is the person that spends 10 hours a day sitting at their desk any more
> dedicated than the person who spends 6

In my observational experience (in _the_ _non-startup_ work realm), with a few
exceptions, the people who regularly work overtime hours tend to not work
enough during the regular 9-5 hours.

~~~
ibsulon
Observation: Many of these are the same people who were night owls in college,
and often would work the same amount of hours if allowed to come in at noon.
:)

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sethg
I've recently started using the Pomodoro Technique (which was linked to on HN
a few months back), and I've found tracking the time I spend very helpful for
my _self_ -discipline--preventing myself from getting into that fugue state
where I'm looking at the browser, going click, click, click, click, and then
realizing that six hours have passed and I've accomplished nothing.

But I absolutely would not want my manager to use this kind of information to
evaluate my performance.

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run4yourlives
While I'm certainly in the "work smarter not longer" camp, to suggest speed,
and therefore efficiency, doesn't matter to business is shortsighted.

How much you accomplish in a _given timeframe_ affects everything - from
perceived worth to how much you can charge.

Time is money, whether you like it or not.

------
popschedule
I am a stay at home entrepreneur and oftentimes get this sort of flame from my
girlfriend or relative. There just isn't a way to measure my work on a per
hour basis. The fact is when you fully commit yourself to perusing your own
ideas and passions, as mine being web development, you begin to notice that
most of the day becomes consumed with the tasks at hand. On most occasions I
find myself think through my ideas as I do common chores around the house,
even when spending time getting physical exercise. How do we measure this time
as productive? The ability to to measure productivity must be in ones ability
to set and meet deadlines, yet continue to improve the output quality.

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jonmc12
The ideal is to define, project and measure time, cost, scope and risk when
trying to achieve a goal, however, there is a cost associated with each
measurement (lets call it COM):

results = measurement of scope; time spent = measurement of time; cost
expended = measurement of cost; risk observed = measurement of risk

When Cost + COM(results, time, cost, risk) > benefit of goal, you cut back on
costs or measurement or lose money.

When (Observed Risk w/ Measurement - Observed Risk w/o Measurement) >
COM(results, time, cost, risk), you measure everything. Otherwise you find an
optimization of what to measure and what not to.

Something like a lawyer, its expensive to measure absolute results a lot of
times, so measuring time makes sense. Similarly, a software contractor working
on an ambiguously defined scope is probably best to measure hours, as the
expected results may be unclear.

In a large organization, the COM(results,time,cost,risk) is often much less
than the prospect of losing sales due to project delays. It increases
overhead, but it may be the most rational choice to measure everything. In
particular, measuring time is critical, because it can serve as a metric to
accurately estimate the perceived risk of the next project.

In the case of a tech startup, Mr. Tenner is probably right on, because
measuring results vs project scope is more straightforward in a small team,
however, measuring risk, and time is expensive. You take your best guess at
risk, keep your costs as low as possible, then measure your results to make
sure you are on the right track.

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ambition
This article completely ignores the effect of teamwork.

Most knowledge work is done in teams. Only the team's results latency and
results throughput matters. However, an individual's total throughput
("results per unit time") is only one variable in the bigger equation.

As an example using "bugs fixed" as a substitute for results, an individual
who can fix a 10 hard bugs a week working only 8pm-12am might not be as
valuable as someone who only fixes 5 hard bugs a week but is around 9am-5pm to
e.g. mentor junior employees.

As usual, the real answer is "It depends and you should manage your own
situation according to your own circumstances."

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
You can't change definitions on the fly!

If fixing bugs is the "result," then fine. But you can't penalize the guy who
fixed 12 but didn't mentor anyone over the one who fixed 5 and mentored junior
employees, because then you're redefining what a result is to include
mentoring.

It's OK to expect different results from different people, but you need to let
them know that.

------
dangrover
I despise most of my employers for their focus on hours, and in fact I left a
job last week that had me working long hours despite the actual quantity of
work assigned to me.

But, ironically, I use hours as an objective way to measure my own work. I use
a time-tracking program similar to what freelances would use so I can get an
exact breakdown on time spent per day, as well as by project. My actual coding
time is there, as well as time spent answering support emails, and time doing
things that support the continuing growth of the business.

Sure,sometimes a whole day flies by and I check the tracker and I've spent 10
hours actually working. But on days when I'm less motivated, it's sort of a
game to rack up an hour here, 15 minutes there, and still manage to get a lot
done.

It's a really good way to spur yourself into tackling a bug/feature/challenge
that you'd otherwise procrastinate. "OK, I have no idea where the hell to
begin, but I can at least spend 30 minutes diligently investigating the
matter. If I'm nowhere closer, I'll stop then and work on something else."
Then you might find that a few hours fly by and the problem is solved.

As long as you're brutally honest with yourself in tracking your time, and
don't allow it just to become a procrastination mechanism (tracking time on
things that really aren't constructive but seem sort of "productive"), it's a
great way to measure yourself.

------
lennysan
As a manager, especially when I'm not coding in the project, I need some way
to know how hard the engineers are working, and whether there's anything I can
do to help them be more productive. I have no doubt there is a clear
correlation between hours worked and results produced. I think as long as you
give engineers the flexibility in their work schedule, I can't imagine not
counting hours.

~~~
lann
"I need some way to know how hard the engineers are working."

Why? And what does "hard" even mean? (working more hours?) The goal is good
results, not hard workers.

"...clear correlation between hours worked and results produced."

Working zero hours will produce zero results, so there is obviously a
correlation, but this correlation cannot be linear, and may not even be
positive in all cases. I would expect working 100 hours in a week would would
make for worse results than 40 hours.

Hours are not a measure of output, or efficiency, or results; they are a
measure of time.

~~~
lennysan
My point is that there's it's very difficult to measure the productivity and
"results" of knowledge work, and you need to look at all the data. This
includes looking at hours worked, plus the quality of the end product, the way
they work with others, the clients impression, and the success of the product
in general. This is a complex problem the requires a holistic approach.

~~~
lann
"My point is that there's it's very difficult to measure the productivity and
"results" of knowledge work, and you need to look at all the data. This
includes looking at hours worked..."

I agree with jimbokun: measuring "time spent" can be useful in many cases, but
it does not measure productivity or quality of work. I understand how
difficult it is to measure productivity, but the answer is not to use a poor
metric just because it's handy.

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donniefitz2
I like where this post was going, but I don't thing it got there. Energy is a
factor, but what about the value of one's effectiveness? It's not merely time,
or energy that gets things done, it's effectiveness.

If I have all the energy in the world and all the time I want, it does not
follow that I'll get more done. If I'm into what I do and I'm good at it
(talent + interest) I'll be more effective and that's of much greater value
than how much time and energy I put in on a given day.

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helveticaman
What about counting calories consumed by the brain? I don't know how one could
do this, but it seems sensible. You get a lot of credit when your brain is
hammering away, and nearly none when you are dozing off in front of the
screen. Also, if you can't do home projects at work, all the cerebral
intensity would be expended on work projects. The worst that could happen is
that the worker focuses on details rather than on the big picture.

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Jakob
Disagree. If you measure hours for yourself it’s very healthy. You know what
you do and when. They help me a lot. ("Ah, it’s 3pm, I never get anything done
in this timeframe. I think I go outside.)

Measuring the time of others is worthless, to that I agree.

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drewr
Maybe I'm missing the point, but what's a good measurement of energy
expenditure? You can't reflect on 6 months time and come to any helpful
conclusion without data to analyze.

