4 ms·

Your ideas are designed around being able to do business like this, rightly or wrongly others go into over ambitious ideas undermanned and the long hours are pr

by robryan 16y ago

Your ideas are designed around being able to do business like this, rightly or wrongly others go into over ambitious ideas undermanned and the long hours are probably the only way they are going to pull it off.

patio11 16y ago
This assumes that working more hours actually makes you produce more value, which is highly non-obvious to me. I didn't produce twice as much stuff when I was working twice as many hours. I'm not even sure net output decreased since radically cutting hours. Mythical man month, etc.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  Obviously it depends on the nature of the work but I believe the research actually supports this position. Certainly my experience of coding is that you can do extra hours for a short while and get some benefit but more than a couple of weeks and that starts falling away pretty rapidly. Even in the short term though it's limited. Beyond midnight (assuming that I've started at 9am-ish and worked relatively solidly) I'm pretty much breaking as much as I'm fixing, plus I tend to be setting myself up for a pretty significant productivity hit the day after.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    The trick is to do difficult work early, and save the easy/boring grunt work for the 8-midnight period.
    - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
      Interesting. Personally I find the more boring the work the more likely I am to mess it up when tired. At least something tricky gives you some mental stimulation which helps you push through the tiredness and stay focused (or as focused as you can be). Sure there are those days when you're knackered so you just tidy your inbox, sort out your expenses and so on but most people really don't have that much work of that nature to do.
jjm 16y ago
Here here. If your guys can't get it done in a normal timeframe they never will. Especially so if your guys are already working 70 hrs/week. Adding another 20 won't help you. Go back to the drawing board, plan better, go MVP for each iteration etc...

by robryan 16y ago

patio11 16y ago

This assumes that working more hours actually makes you produce more value, which is highly non-obvious to me. I didn't produce twice as much stuff when I was working twice as many hours. I'm not even sure net output decreased since radically cutting hours. Mythical man month, etc.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
Obviously it depends on the nature of the work but I believe the research actually supports this position. Certainly my experience of coding is that you can do extra hours for a short while and get some benefit but more than a couple of weeks and that starts falling away pretty rapidly. Even in the short term though it's limited. Beyond midnight (assuming that I've started at 9am-ish and worked relatively solidly) I'm pretty much breaking as much as I'm fixing, plus I tend to be setting myself up for a pretty significant productivity hit the day after.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The trick is to do difficult work early, and save the easy/boring grunt work for the 8-midnight period.
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    Interesting. Personally I find the more boring the work the more likely I am to mess it up when tired. At least something tricky gives you some mental stimulation which helps you push through the tiredness and stay focused (or as focused as you can be). Sure there are those days when you're knackered so you just tidy your inbox, sort out your expenses and so on but most people really don't have that much work of that nature to do.

jjm 16y ago

Here here. If your guys can't get it done in a normal timeframe they never will. Especially so if your guys are already working 70 hrs/week. Adding another 20 won't help you. Go back to the drawing board, plan better, go MVP for each iteration etc...