Series

How To Series: Standard Work Week

How many hours should employees expect to work per week? According to Jason Fried of Basecamp, 40 hours per week is more than enough . There are countless studies that have found that employees working more than 40 hours per week on a sustained basis see their productivity dwindle. I would expect that it is also a leading cause of burnout of employees. Who wants a workforce of overworked, burnt out, and tired employees that keep seeing their performance dwindle over time?

Read More

How Not To: Normal Working Hours

I was working at a company that was extremely strict about ensuring that their employees were working between 8am and 5pm during the week, and I had taken a Friday and a Monday off to enjoy some much needed relaxation away from work. I returned on Tuesday morning to discover that there were multiple customer emergencies that had to be taken care of, and would require working extra hours to be able to coordinate addressing the issue with outside consultants with minimal impact to the customer’s business.

Read More

New How Not To Series

Welcome to the newest series on The Geek Speaks, How Not To. The focus of this series will be to highlight some of the things that should be avoided when running development teams. It is from a developer’s perspective that has spent time working extensively in support, product management, and team leadership, and will cover some of the things that I have seen companies do poorly. In addition, I will also highlight some of the things that you can do that undermine the things you can do well as seen in the How To Series.

Read More

New How To Series

Welcome to the newest series on The Geek Speaks, How To. The focus of this series will be to highlight some of the best practices for how to run development teams. It is from a developer’s perspective that has spent time working extensively in support, product management, and team leadership, and will cover some of the things that I have seen companies do well. In addition, I will also highlight some of the things that you can do to counteract those things you shouldn’t be doing, as seen in the How Not To series.

Read More