I'm not saying side projects aren't important. I do plenty of them. Maybe too many. But as a team lead, you can't let everybody do their own thing willy nilly a

I'm not saying side projects aren't important. I do plenty of them. Maybe too many. But as a team lead, you can't let everybody do their own thing willy nilly all over the place. My interpretation of the original post is that these side projects are impeding scheduled work. That's not acceptable. Either a) this side project work is crucial and team lead is deficient for not recognizing this or b) it's not and the devs aren't being held accountable for the work the stakeholders have prioritized. This discrepancy needs to be resolved.