Mandatory Time Tracking For Developers?! NO THANKS!

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, just headed to CrossFit here. Um, going to a submitted question today. This one is about time tracking and I think it's a great question. I don't think we've talked about this one at all, so this would be kind of cool. And uh, just a friendly reminder for folks, if you want questions answered, leave them below in the comments or go to codemute.com. You can submit questions anonymously that way. And with that said, let's jump into it. So, uh, with most things, I find that when you have extremes of them, it's not not great. Um, but like with time tracking, it's kind of interesting because you just might be in a situation like most of my career, I've worked and not needed explicit time tracking, okay? Like recording any time spent on specific work issues and stuff like that. Um, but this is literally in some working situations a hard requirement.

And like one example, like if you're like when is that ever going to happen? Like literally if you have to bill hours to a client like then you may need to have some type of time tracking. So um that might be you as like doing freelance work or a contract work. That might be you working at a you know at a particular company that does contract work or operates in a way where they've like allocated people to you know getting work particular work done for a client and that's billable hours. Um I've done a hybrid before so I've worked at a place where we were salaried uh everyone just you know that's that's how we operated. Uh and then we were doing a particular project uh where that project was being subsidized and in order for that to go through we needed to do time tracking.

Okay. So it's like that's not our normal mode of working and it was it was really obvious to us that it wasn't our normal mode of working because of uh kind of like this person was saying in their message to me like you know they don't like doing it. It's like it's a pain in the butt. And uh yeah, like that's really what we noticed was that when we had to get into time tracking, it was pretty um I want to like I want to use the word like awful comes to mind, but I I think I should elaborate on that. The the act of tracking time, it's kind of like it's kind of like a lot of things when you're not when you don't feel like there's a good reason to be doing it, you always look for shortcuts, right?

So you in the beginning when you're told you have to do something that you don't like to do and there's a set of requirements and rules and stuff you're like okay like going through this list of like what has to be done I got to get it perfect and you're like wow that really sucked to do right so you're tracking time it's like here's the granularity uh uh and then you have to figure out the work items you have to categorize them sometimes you're doing this and you're like man that took way too long and like that sucked and then the next time you're like wow that really sucked And you get to this point where you've done it a few times and then your brain starts to go like, "Okay, how do we like how do we find the shortcuts with this?" Because it's so shitty to do.

And uh it's not that it's like hard, right? It's not like, "Oh no, like if I pick the wrong category, like I'm I could lose my job." Like it's probably not like that. It's not that it's so hard or like complex. I guess it's just like it's boring. It's boring. It's an afterthought and it takes time. And so you end up looking for shortcuts and things. And then I think the side effect of that is that the time the quality of the time tracking kind of drops. And if there isn't, this is where I feel like it's kind of interesting. Like if that doesn't actually negatively impact anything, then like the reality is whatever granularity in the time tracking people were looking for, maybe that doesn't actually matter. Like if if the end result is, hey, we got our time tracked, everything worked, and like everyone's happy, then maybe that granularity really didn't matter.

Um something to think about. Like I'm just making this up. Maybe you had like you have to track down to 10 minutes of time spent on something and there was, you know, 50 categories to pick from. And in reality, as long as you had down to an hour of time tracking and like there was really like five categories that you assign things to, maybe that would have lightened the uh, you know, the mental gymnastics or mental or the cognitive load to go get time tracking done or the frequency that you need it, right? Like do you need it every day, once a week? I mean, the reality is with time tracking, if you stay on top of it a little bit more regularly, it's uh uh less kind of like you want to die when you're doing it. Someone's got to speed up here. Come on.

Nice. So, my experience with time tracking has been that we don't often have to do it, and then when we do, it kind of sucks. But like I said, uh depending on situations, that just might be a requirement. So this is why I was saying like with extremes, like you can kind of get bitten both ways. So if you never do it and then you're in a situation where you have to, it probably really, really, really sucks because you're like, "This is just more work. I don't like doing it. I don't understand the purpose of it. Um I'm not used to doing it, right?" Which is totally like a normal feeling when you have to do something extra that you're not used to doing. kind of want to resist it, especially because you likely don't see it adding any value to anything you're doing, right? It it feels kind of obvious like you're probably not going to want to do something extra that you don't really care about.

But, um, let's talk about the other end of this. And so when this person wrote in, they said seems like it's because uh like someone wasn't actually doing work. And I think this is where I start to not really like this. uh not not with the not because of the the person and what they wrote, but I mean like uh where I start to not like this usage of time tracking. And it goes something like this because they wrote in saying that it seems like time tracking was introduced because there was someone on the team that was saying they're doing work and they weren't. And so the the way to like remedy that is to therefore make everyone report on the time. And I I think that this is sort of the wrong my opinion the wrong uh fix to this problem and for a handful of different reasons.

Uh one I think that this uh I don't like patterns like this where you take something that is very likely. I don't have data on this, but it's very likely the outlier, right? Having someone on a team, hopefully this is an outlier, someone on a team who's not doing work and saying that they are. Okay, that that's hopefully an outlier. Hopefully, there's zero people like this. Uh I've certainly operated teams where I've had uh the odd individual like this, but it's it's extremely rare in my own career. Has it happened? Yes, absolutely. Um, so instead of sort of like making everyone pay the penalty for that, which is okay, now everyone's got a time track, um, I would rather address it as it comes up because that's not the um majority case. It's not even a like a common case. It's it's extremely rare in my own experience.

Now other maybe this engineering manager or whatever leader put this in place. Maybe it's actually a very common thing for them and this is they're like screw it like this is the the last straw like we're doing this. I don't have the details on that, right? So I'm kind of just commenting with the data that I have. Uh but if you watch enough of my videos, I do try as best I can. Buddy, you cannot merge when there's a car there. that's physically impossible. Um I do try to take different sides so that we can we can look at different angles of things. So maybe this particular leader did this because it is very common in which case like you know that's a different experience in mine. It's just not not what I would like to do. Um but that's the first point is that it's not the common case.

So don't uh don't put sweeping things in place to address something that's not the common case. Um, one sec. My map went away. There we go. I like watching it for traffic. Cool. Um, the next part is like I so like, okay, well, what is the solution that I like? Well, if that's not the common case and if we're thinking about like what's actually happening there, um I realize there's probably going to be some people that scoff at this and I accept that. That's fine. Um but I I think that when people aren't doing work, it's because they're not interested in the work. Right? So, I've absolutely in my, you know, 15 years of working professionally, I've absolutely had situations where I'm like, I don't want to do the work because it's boring work. And so, like, you you would rather do nothing than do the work, right?

Or you'd rather go find something else to do than do the work. And you can think about this even outside of employment, right? If you've been to school and you're like, I have to study or I have to do this assignment. Odds are if you're like me, you'll procrastinate. You'll find other things to do other than the thing you got to do cuz you don't want to do it. And so I would much rather personally as someone who manages engineering teams, I would much rather work with individuals to find interesting work for them. There is so much work to do. I have never been on an engineering team or managed an engineering team where it was like, man, we're running out of stuff. Like, guess guess that's the end of the line. It's like there's always so much to do.

And I would much rather talk to those individuals about their strengths, their weaknesses, their interests, the stuff that's, you know, that that kind of sucks their energy where they're like, I just don't like doing stuff like that. Um, I'd rather talk about their career goals. I'd rather understand this, work with them, and then come up with a plan for the the work that's going to make the most sense for them to do. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that equates to, you know, every single day forever they always have the most optimized, most interesting work to do that they're going to love. Like, absolutely not. There's going to be days, perhaps weeks, where there's like work they don't want to do. It's, you know, I can't I can't just make up work and then hope that it's going to align perfectly. But I would much rather have conversations and work with people on that.

So to address this issue of like people aren't getting work done and they're they're lying about it. I would like on this it's going to sound funny. I would rather talk to someone and be like hey like you don't have work to do and if or like you're not doing work like what's up with that? Like why? because and it's and I wouldn't ask it directly like that cuz I don't want it to be like I don't want to come out on the offense for that and be like you better or else. But it's like look if you're if you're not doing work it's very likely because you're not interested maybe there's something else going on in their life that we should understand. Like I'm just making this up and hopefully not the case. Maybe someone's got a really sick relative or child or their partner or whatever and they're they're not getting work done because they're very much pulled away from that on a regular basis.

I would rather understand that and go, "Cool, now we know what's up." Like, do you need some type of leave? Do we need someone else to step into balance projects while this is happening? Right? Um, so hopefully not the case like that, but if it's something like, yeah, like you know, I've been on this project for months now and like I'm losing steam on it, cool. Like, let's talk about that. So, is it the type of work? Is it just that you've been on this project for a while? Is it that you're working with particular people on this project and that's sapping your energy? Like, what's going on with this? Any answer is acceptable. I'm just trying to learn and understand what's going on from your perspective on this. And then once we dig into that and understand kind of like what's keeping you down, what's sapping your energy, what's making it so that you're not motivated to do it.

Cool. Like what types of things exist where we could put you on that? Um is there uh an end in sight, you know, light at the end of the tunnel where it's like look, let's get you let's get a transition plan. We'll get a couple more weeks on this project or something. We'll get someone else ramped up. uh or you know maybe you're almost done anyway like can we push through like you know we'll make sure that you have something that you're excited about coming up after like let's have this conversation because if you haven't had this in your career or you haven't seen it even you know with other people on your teams depends how much seniority you have in my opinion it becomes pretty obvious when people are excited about the work or at least have some level of ownership and engage engagement and it's because they'll step in when they don't have to.

There's no extra incentivization. It's not like, oh, like, you know, you responded after 5:00 p.m. like you get a bonus, right? There's no extra incentive. It's people like jumping in to either help with things, to answer questions, like they express interest outside like their sort of expected constraints. And I'm not saying that becomes my expectation of people. They have to do extra. My point is that you if you notice people that do this where there truly is no extra motivation. It's just like self motivated like it's it's because they're interested in the thing, right? They're proud of what's going on. They're they're excited about it. Uh if if you're like that sounds like that doesn't happen. I'm telling you it literally does. And if you have not experienced it, that's why I'm saying I'm sorry if you have not yet. But I'm sure there's something that exists like that for you where you're like, "This is exciting.

I'm interested. I'm proud of something I've worked on." And even if there was no extra incentive, no cash bonus, no, you know, you get extra rewards or whatever, you get promoted 2% faster, you would still express this type of interest. So I would much rather this is why when I talk about engineering management leading teams and stuff I'm like people first all the time like that's how it looks and the reason that's the case is because when you try to put people first on all these things everything else kind of falls into place. People first people first people first business needs something cool. like you've been putting people first the entire time. Getting people rallied behind something where it's like the business needs this, we need extra help or there's a tighter deadline or something's come up, business needs this. People are like, "Hell yeah." Like they're excited because they've they've already been supported the entire time.

They're happy to step in. They're happy to help. Right? Obviously, this falls apart when like you you masquerade as like it's for the people, but really you're just like kind of putting people into a death march for stuff. Doesn't work so well. That's that's not actually doing what I said, though. But putting people first, I find, is a great strategy for making it so that you know, time tracking to make sure people are actually doing their job. Like, you don't need that. If you find that you do, it's because you have trust problems on the team and I would rather that you go invest into that. Why are there trust problems? But I'm at CrossFit. Hopefully that helps. Oh, what? No parking spots. Come on. I guess we're parking on the other side of the street. It's cuz I had to get gas. That's what I get for getting gas.

Okay. Thanks for the question. Hope that helps. Um, time tracking, it's not necessarily evil, but I think if you're not practiced at it, it feels like a pain in the butt. And if you're using time tracking to make sure that people are actually doing their work, I think you should probably uh look at other angles for for gaining trust in your team. And I think that might help a little bit more. So, thanks so much for watching. See you next time.