Managing Product Development

I’m catching up on my blog-reading, and Udi Dahan’s Programmers don’t make projects fail is a keeper. Make sure you read to this part:

My philosophy is followed with an operative task: If you ever have to do more than 2 hours of overtime in a week, let me know.

I understand the 2 hours of overtime, although I’m not sure I agree with it. But any more than that, and you’ve got the first indication of a project in trouble.

It’s worth taking a quick listen to Commentary - Overtime’s not good for your health. The folks from University of Arkansas actually have data that says overtime is ok and doesn’t reduce productivity. Hah! I wonder where their data came from. On the other hand, Joe Robinson’s commentary makes perfect sense to me. Here are some of his comments:

“Excess overtime reduces productivity during regular and excess hours” (paraphrase by JR)

“People working 7 50-hour weeks produce less than people working 7 40-hour weeks”

“Long hours are a tragic failure of the knowledge economy”

So forget the idea that you’re making progress by working overtime. It’s not going to happen. I wrote a bit about preventing overtime in my last Pragmatic Manager newsletter. Some ideas: ask how little you can do, look at your fix rate to verify you’re making progress, look at multi-tasking, create release criteria, and review if everyone’s late, or just some staff. Help those staff where necessary.

Whatever you do, understand that you can push as much as you’d like, but you still can’t think any faster. (Thanks to Tim Lister, from whom I first heard that gem.)

My Stickyminds column this month deals with choosing when to start and end project overtime, “When Should You Start Project Overtime?”

Frank Patrick has already chimed in with one of the common causes of overtime, multi-tasking. See Multi-tasking Multiplies Lead Time

Also see these blog entries from Esther Derby and Hal Macomber. A note: I think Esther, Frank, Hal, and I blogged bunches of entries about multi-tasking in March, which is why I referenced Esther’s March archive.

Please do read the Stickyminds column, and post your comments. The more, the merrier.