[HN Gopher] Best Practices for Remote Software Engineering
___________________________________________________________________
Best Practices for Remote Software Engineering
Author : RuffleGordon
Score : 248 points
Date : 2021-04-26 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cacm.acm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cacm.acm.org)
| dboreham wrote:
| * Shower first
|
| * Put on clothes
|
| * Deliver tangible things often
| mym1990 wrote:
| I prefer:
|
| * Put on clothes
|
| * Shower
|
| * Deliver tangible things often
| barbazoo wrote:
| Midday showers are one of my favorite things about WFH.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I have to agree. Not just showers, but any type of personal
| cleansing. I've gotten in the habit of waiting until well
| after my wife is awake and out of bed before I shave and
| brush my teeth, and it's perfectly fine.
| znpy wrote:
| Since we're commenting a piece from the ACM: would you people
| recommend an ACM membership subscription and reading the
| communication of the ACM magazine?
|
| What if you're not directly a software engineer but more like a
| system engineer / system administrator / DevOps engineer?
| mavelikara wrote:
| The Oreilly library access alone is totally worth the price of
| ACM membership.
| lolinder wrote:
| Is the Oreilly access that comes with the ACM membership full
| access? The same level of access you'd get for $500/yr from
| Oreilly directly?
| collaborative wrote:
| Lots of whiteboards. Clean, tidy desk. No visible cables.
| Sunlight. Fresh air. Caffeine
| vladojsem wrote:
| I believe asynchronous communication is the key for remote work.
| It is super-hard to learn and requires a trust, however, I find
| it the most efficient style of work. Of course there will still
| be some regular meetings / synchronous communication, but more
| asynchronous you can do more focus time remains.
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| What a great article! I specifically like the emphasis on the
| human touch, like showing empathy and trying to build a
| connection with the customer and the team, despite the remote
| aspect.
|
| I also believe that correct use of communication media plays a
| huge role in the effectiveness of remote work. But personally,
| unlike the author, I believe that written communication is much
| better for remote teams. Shameless plug, I've wrote an article
| specifically on the topic of communication for remote work
| https://dragoshmocrii.com/remote-work-and-efficient-communic...
| yrgulation wrote:
| Barking at the wrong tree. In my view, most experienced software
| engineers can self organise and self manage. Not saying everyone
| can or that everyone should do remote work but many that enjoy
| and prefer remote work can.
|
| "This Viewpoint is intended for remote software engineers who are
| facing new challenges to thinking about routine, responsibility,
| and goal setting."
|
| This viewpoint should be intended for non technical managers as
| they are the ones who tend to clutter project delivery with time
| management tools and meetings. This applies to onsite work as
| well. I feel like there is a lot of effort put in educating devs
| on doing the right thing while management is educated in the
| opposite direction.
| morelisp wrote:
| Most software engineers are not experienced software engineers.
| notJim wrote:
| Hmm, is that true? Just from a numbers perspective, it seems
| like there would be far more experienced software engineers
| than brand new ones.
| ectopod wrote:
| There would be far more experienced software engineers than
| brand new ones if the field was stable, but it has been
| growing exponentially for years.
|
| The answer to the original question depends on the rate of
| growth, how you define more experienced, etc. So it's not
| obviously true or false.
| wnevets wrote:
| According to Robert Martin 50% of developers at any given
| time have less than 5 years of experience. [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/ecIWPzGEbFc?t=3055
| lostcolony wrote:
| Most software engineers become experienced software engineers
| (enough to self-manage) very quickly in the right
| environment, I've found.
| codingdave wrote:
| Most software environments are not the right environment.
| morelisp wrote:
| Excellent point. Small details about your working
| environment, or lack of a routine, can hugely throw off
| your workday, and thus your productivity. You should
| generally pay attention to the lighting, noise level, and
| comfort of a work space. If you find yourself distracted
| by anything, you might consider changing your
| environment. Habitual repetition by way of thinking about
| your environment or making explicit choices can lead to
| the establishment of longer-term habits.
|
| Someone should write an article with that advice in it...
| jzoch wrote:
| That's probably survivor's bias and not true at scale.
| "Right environment" is shaky - we should strive towards
| defining what makes an environment the "right" one and how
| can we increase the number of engineers that successfully
| acclimate to their new way of working.
| morelisp wrote:
| I disagree (my anecdotal estimate would be around 1/3 do
| quickly, and 1/3 do "slowly" i.e. within 3-5 years), but
| those who do can still accelerate the process by reading
| documents like this, no? People who can self-teach still
| benefit from learning materials.
| jzoch wrote:
| I think its pretty clear there are problems on both sides.
| Managers need to learn the correct approach to facilitate
| acclimating their team to remote work but each individual also
| could improve how they work so that remote settings are more
| optimal. Nothing is so black and white.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I feel like most engineers are pretty good at working remotely
| (c.f. all of open source).
|
| Managers however seem to have a very hard time adjusting. If I
| were to give some "best practices" for remote management, they
| would be:
|
| * Don't worry about how your reports are spending their time. If
| someone doesn't get back to you, they are busy.
|
| * Don't factor an employee's location into their compensation.
|
| * Minimize meetings (this is for non-wfh too, but it's much
| easier when people are remote).
|
| * Allow people to leave their cameras off during calls.
|
| * Don't worry so much about flying people to meet IRL. It's
| expensive and disruptive. It may also introduce politics that
| won't exist if everyone stays remote.
|
| * Realize that a lot of what people think of as "management" is
| actually unneeded babysitting that's a vestigial cargo-cult from
| the industrial revolution. Your job is to hire, motivate and
| unblock. That's pretty much it.
|
| I wonder if the role of manager will go away and be replaced with
| more specialized roles. I actually think it might be nice for a
| company to provide a therapist for people to to privately talk
| to. That's always been a weird roll that managers often play. It
| would be nice to vent to someone who doesn't get to decide your
| next raise. Between some level of HR outlet, product management
| and mentorship, I don't really see a dedicated role for what we
| now call "manager".
| morelisp wrote:
| > I feel like most engineers are pretty good at working
| remotely (c.f. all of open source).
|
| Most engineers are not on GitHub or any of the other social
| coding sites, let alone contributing to or managing an open
| source project. And anyone who is managing an open source
| project can tell you how much _work_ it is to help other
| engineers contribute constructively.
|
| Your idea of a managerial role doesn't seem to leave much room
| for technical or team leads, only "product management".
| Sometimes your role is to hire/motivate/unblock - and sometimes
| the motivational role is make sure someone spends those three
| hours writing unit tests everyone agreed were important even
| though no one wants to.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Open source is just one example. In general I would say
| engineers work well in a quite place with no distractions and
| minimal bureaucracy. It is creative work after all.
|
| > _Your idea of a managerial role doesn 't seem to leave much
| room for technical or team leads, only "product management".
| Sometimes your role is to hire/motivate/unblock - and
| sometimes the motivational role is make sure someone spends
| those three hours writing unit tests everyone agreed were
| important even though no one wants to._
|
| I did include mentorship in my list of things needed to help
| engineers grow. I'd also add "everyone agreed" in a
| traditional management setting is pretty much identical to
| "the person who decides how much people get paid, said so".
| Good devs will typically write the appropriate amount of
| testing unprodded.
| morelisp wrote:
| Engineers (and everybody else) _like working_ in places
| with no distractions and minimal bureaucracy. But that
| doesn 't mean they all _work well_ them.
|
| > I'd also add "everyone agreed" in a traditional
| management setting is pretty much identical to "the person
| who decides how much people get paid, said so".
|
| Absolutely no one on our team deciding what people get paid
| has any say in how many tests we write. The engineering
| manager has some say (mostly as a tie-breaker) in technical
| decisions but does not "decide" how much anyone gets paid
| (outside of salary range for new job postings), but can
| choose to advocate (or not) for a particular person's
| salary with higher management. The senior developers have
| the most say, and they determine no one's salary.
|
| > Good devs will typically write the appropriate amount of
| testing unprodded.
|
| Qualifying this with "good devs" somewhat begs the
| question. I would rather avoid judging the developers and
| just say, no, _most_ developers will not typically write
| the appropriate amounts of tests by without some friendly
| reminders.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| > _Engineers (and everybody else) like working in places
| with no distractions and minimal bureaucracy. But that
| doesn 't mean they all work well them._
|
| I don't think evidence exists to suggest they don't. From
| a burnout perspective alone, making people work in an
| environment they don't like will cause attrition.
| Especially now that there are plenty of WFH options.
| That's not even touching on how stress impacts
| creativity.
|
| > _Qualifying this with "good devs" somewhat begs the
| question. I would rather avoid judging the developers and
| just say, no, most developers will not typically write
| the appropriate amounts of tests by without some friendly
| reminders._
|
| Our personal experiences are diametrically opposed to
| each other then. I've never seen lack of tests be an
| issue on any team I've worked with. I have however seen
| unproductive teams create tests in place of being
| productive.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| >I actually think it might be nice for a company to provide a
| therapist for people to to privately talk to. That's always
| been a weird roll that managers often play.
|
| It would be interesting to break down what percentage of 1:1
| time with employees is spent in therapy-like discussions. It
| feels like this role isn't recognized enough, except perhaps by
| the managers themselves.
| ketzo wrote:
| Two great managers I've had both regarded this as one of
| their highest duties.
|
| As an engineer, having someone above you in the chain of
| command who regularly asks things like "how are you feeling
| about work? Bad? Good? Are you stressed or content?" is a big
| deal. Even if the answer is a totally noncommittal
| "everything's fine" 99% of the time, that 1% is absolutely
| critical to be aware of.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| #0: a standing desk
|
| #0': external monitors & desk mount
|
| #0": an ergonomic keyboard
|
| Do work on a laptop on your kitchen table, you're harming
| yourself!
| [deleted]
| philangist wrote:
| I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during
| 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the
| transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom
| and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often
| find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead
| on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit
| tests.
| joncp wrote:
| I'll do your unit tests if you'll take my build scripts! :)
| brotherofsteel wrote:
| Pair and mob programming
| edabobojr wrote:
| In my experience, pair and mob programming are just yet
| another scenario where neuro-atypical people are punished for
| approaching their work differently.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I just recently started working at a place where mob
| programming is commonplace.
|
| It is easily the most wasteful use of time I have ever seen
| in my professional career.
|
| 1.5hr session * 6 devs = 9 hours down the drain.
|
| Only one person can speak during a Zoom call! It's a
| single-threaded, low throughout, low latency communication
| medium.
|
| So it always ends up being one or two people talking - the
| one or two driving what is being mobbed on.
|
| Due to this, I try to only jump in when I have something
| valuable to add. Which isn't often given the situation I
| described. If I'm driving or directly involved with the
| design or w/e of the mob session's focus .. sure of course
| I'll talk. But I'm not going to sit around trying to get a
| fluffy word in edgewise for 90 min just for its own sake.
|
| And yet a frequent driver of this mob culture (a
| "principal" engineer if you can believe it) loves to
| mention how I'm not "engaged."
|
| ??? I sit in your dumbass meetings and pay attention for 90
| minutes! My time is 100% focused on the meeting!
| mym1990 wrote:
| Being a junior previously I derived a lot of benefit from
| light pair coding every now and then to learn something
| from a more senior developer. I have also been in code
| reviews where 2+ people are of equal relative skill, but
| have different approaches to a problem, and it almost
| becomes a stalemate or some kind of power struggle to 'be
| right'. 6 devs seems very excessive and an expensive use
| of time heh.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I had an admob interview once. I don't understand why
| this would ever be used. It seems so costly, slow and
| disrespectful of everyone's time.
| sodapopcan wrote:
| It's slow at the beginning, but the payoffs are huge.
| With mobbing, everyone knows how to do everything. Far
| less design mistakes are made. No one ends up "owning"
| certain parts of the system. It's also very humbling as
| everyone succeeds and fails together, discouraging
| "heroics". Pairing is also great for this (but you have
| to switch every day).
|
| Obviously, if you're working in a feature factory,
| pairing and mobbing are pointless. If you care about code
| quality and de-siloing, they're incredibly valuable.
|
| Obviously, it's not for everyone, but it works incredibly
| well where I work and I will never accept another job
| that doesn't encourage pairing by default.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Think of it as a chance to pick up editor and language
| tricks you might not have known, or to socialize "best
| practices". The metagame is still part of the game. If
| you can't change the practice, try to make the most of
| it.
| bmm6o wrote:
| For "normal" mobbing, 6 people is too many. If I had 6
| devs coding (which I often do) that's very rarely going
| to be a single mob. It could split up 2/2/2, 3/3, 1/2/3
| or whatever, but a single group of 6 is really
| inefficient.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I won't say it's for everyone. But for ADHD specifically,
| my personal experience is that pair programming is a
| godsend. I am able to use half my regular dose of ritalin
| while pairing.
| edabobojr wrote:
| I am glad it works for you. Maybe (hopefully?) I have
| just had an abnormal experience.
| wernercd wrote:
| I'd say I can get behind pair-programming to a point...
| it helps get new ideas, different view points and leads
| to rubber-duck-programming like effects.
|
| I'm not sure I'm a fan of Mob programming... as others
| mention, over a phone/video conference, it seems
| inadequate. Turns more into an ad-hoc video lesson by the
| stronger personalities (for better or worse - I happen to
| be one of those in my small group at work).
|
| Do you have problems with both? 2 vs 3+? or is it one or
| the other?
| sodapopcan wrote:
| To do mobbing effectively you should be switching the
| driver very rapidly. It's a bit tough remotely, but it
| can be done. There are probably other ways to make it
| effective, but if only a few people are contributing,
| then the mob has failed and should either be recalibrated
| or stopped altogether.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| No, anecdotally a lot of people struggle. It is an
| intensive experience and places different pressure on a
| person than soloing does. For me it works great, for many
| people it works great, but not for everybody.
| koboll wrote:
| I don't think you're going to find the best time management
| tips from people who are on Hacker News in the middle of a
| Monday afternoon.
| avgDev wrote:
| _slow clap_
| lliamander wrote:
| Which is too bad, because those of us reading right now could
| probably benefit the most from good advice.
| domano wrote:
| Well there is more than one timezone.
| junga wrote:
| It's not the middle of the afternoon all around the globe at
| the same time. Some of us already spent eight hours slacking
| off.
| jolux wrote:
| Ouch.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Does it actually impact your relative productivity net of
| everything?
|
| I have done that a few times even without ADHD (presumably).
| But stripping away all the meetings (or at least the need to
| stop work to be in them), the chatting, and the distracting
| questions has made it net out to about the same.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| If you can get away with going down a Reddit rathole for three
| days, no one is watching you that closely. That gives you
| freedom to chase other things. One option could be writing a
| library to make your tests more interesting to write. Write the
| boring tests first, and then look for a way to make the process
| of writing them more interesting.
| Bishop_ wrote:
| This (might) help you, It helped me anyways.
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
| misterremote wrote:
| I often find myself looking at my website and trying to
| figure out what is the most important thing I have to work on
| right now.
|
| But hours can pass by like this.
|
| And I've learned that I need to start with something small.
| Even a tiny improvement/fix I spend my first 15 minutes on
| gets me going and into the flow state!
| xkeysc0re wrote:
| Is that ADHD or are you just procrastinating? You clearly
| recognize the issue. Maybe try Screen Time limits or changing
| your hosts file
| nemetroid wrote:
| Are you suggesting that people suffering from ADHD do not
| recognize that there is an issue?
| dboreham wrote:
| Aren't these synonyms?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| No, far from it. The pop culture definition of ADHD has
| become extremely vague and watered down, almost to the same
| degree that "OCD" has become a pop-culture term for
| attention to detail.
|
| Procrastination is a common behavior in people with _and_
| without ADHD. Procrastination alone is not an indicator of
| ADHD.
|
| Likewise, someone who procrastinates does not fully
| understand the struggles of someone with ADHD.
| jjj1232 wrote:
| Procrastination/lack of executive function is a symptom of
| ADHD.
| jonfw wrote:
| Software is absolutely inadequate to prevent you from being
| distracted... You can block a couple of things but it's an
| uphill battle, because there are no limits to the number of
| things more interesting in the short term than writing unit
| tests.
|
| It's import to identify and address the root of the problem
| rather than just the symptoms. Do you find your work
| rewarding? Will these unit tests help you to complete the
| goals you hold for yourself? Are you healthy enough to
| faciliate productive work?
| treeman79 wrote:
| So I have ADHD. Official diagnosis. My kids have it. Official
| diagnosis. My mom and sisters clearly have it, but refuse to be
| tested.
|
| If something is sufficiently interesting I can hyper focus like
| crazy.
|
| For decades any level of boredom was physically painful.
|
| Remote is the worse for me. Staying on task is a nightmare.
|
| What helped? Pair programming. This keeps you engaged and on
| task. I try and pair as much as possible.
|
| Medication. I was on Adderal for awhile. It works great. I had
| to stop due to serious side effects. (Strokes)
|
| However it got me past the mental block of "boring is painful"
|
| I function a good better without medication now. It's not where
| it needs to be to cope with 8 hours of no human interaction,
| but better.
|
| I tried another non stimulate med. my focus was fine, but I was
| so sleepy my work was crap.
|
| I'm on Vyvanse now. My kids are on Vyanse.
|
| It works a lot better.
|
| I get some of the same side effects as adderall But not as
| intense.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| I'm in the same boat and pair programming has been a godsend.
| It's so much easier to think about and work on boring tasks
| with a colleague. We both have the same problem so it's a
| good match.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I use timers all the time. Basically a slightly modified tomato
| timer.
| znpy wrote:
| I kinda made it explicit with myself (not with my colleagues of
| course, duh).
|
| I'll fuck off most of the morning, well aware that I'm doing
| so, and I'll work non stop in the afternoon.
|
| Some important things though: during the morning I mostly spend
| time on stuff I find interesting, usually tech stuff not
| directly related with my job. A few times non work stuff. But
| seriously, it's a joy to be able to spend the morning to get
| better at something about your job.
|
| I spent last week mornings playing with the kubernetes APIs and
| the client-go libraries, with only vagues ideas. Turns out, a
| colleague is findin one of the toy tools I've written useful.
| Wasn't expecting that. Last month I spent another week mornings
| diving into AWS IAM and now I finally finally understand stuff
| and I'm reporting problems to our head of it security, and
| we're fixing stuff before they become problems.
|
| The key, imho, is to be self-aware: I'll fuck off in the
| morning, and I will work in the afternoon, no interruptions.
|
| Important edit: I might be slacking, technically, but I always
| keep an eye on the company chat. If anyone or anything needs my
| attention, I drop my slacking off and be readily available
| (most often you only have to be able to hear the Slack client
| beeping)
| jwdunne wrote:
| I have quite the story.
|
| I was terrified I wouldn't be able to focus. Terrified I'd get
| distracted by home life. That my productivity would plummet.
|
| But it didn't happen. In fact, the opposite. I never realised
| how much commuting and office noise harmed my productivity and
| energy levels. I was buzzing.
|
| And I did what any ADDer would do.
|
| I got drunk on it. Then burnt out.
|
| In typical ADHD fashion, I thought all that new energy was
| permanent and I could work insane hours. Sometimes from 7am
| until 1am.
|
| I was warned. But I didn't listen - not to my mrs, not to my
| old man, my sister and colleagues.
|
| And then, once the dust of lockdown settled, I burst.
|
| After making damn sure that the company I worked for and my
| sisters business didn't go bust, I couldn't anymore.
|
| The code I wrote only a few weeks before? Hieroglyphs. But not
| that I'd lost understanding. I knew I could read it if I wanted
| to.
|
| But I _really_ didn't want to. Like my very being rejected any
| attempt to focus on the task at hand.
|
| I was reduced to attending scrums. And playing video games.
|
| It took a weekend away, a week off and a bit of advice from Dr
| Feynman.
|
| Thankfully, work was understanding. I was given a project where
| I could play, and still deliver value. And so I played, got
| something small done. Then I played some more. And so on.
|
| Now, a colleague works on the project with me. I played so much
| that I was prone to rabbit holes. My hyperfocus was out of
| tune.
|
| But then I took stock and was able to focus. We found a way
| forward, took some advice, got speaking to the users and
| focused development on fast iteration and feedback.
|
| The past few months have been the most productive of my life.
| All remote.
|
| I learned a lot of hard lessons in lockdown. The lessons I
| could not predict.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| It definitely helps me to have at least some working in the
| office. I can work on something that is cool/exciting from home
| no problem such as implementing new features, learning some new
| API, etc. from home no problem, but going back to the office is
| very helpful for stuff like going through email.
|
| Also, thank you for speaking up! I feel like a lot of the
| discourse for ADHD folks has been how freeing it has been to
| get away from the distractions at work. For me, and it sounds
| like also for you, working from home often doesn't have enough
| structure.
| animesh wrote:
| Are you me? One thing that led me to not turn on my desktop
| workstation is to complete a personal project. For at least
| half a week, I did not bother to reach out for instant
| gratification via reading HN, proggit, podcasts etc.
|
| If I can only find the energy and appropriate time to do this,
| I figure I can save my work and work ethic.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I stopped being able to get work done at all. It gradually
| tipped me into a low-self-esteem death spiral. I tried lots of
| different approaches to fix it: more accountability with my
| manager, new medication, more regular exercise, therapy, a bit
| of disability leave, even moved to a bigger apartment where I
| could have my own office. Nothing got me past the block.
|
| I quit my job, spent six weeks studying and interviewing
| aggressively, and got hired for a higher-level position at a
| different company. I pushed back my start date enough that I'll
| onboard in an office instead of remotely. In the meantime I'm
| working on my health and personal projects, and spending lots
| of time with friends and in nature.
|
| I gave up trying to work remotely this time around, but I'm
| still hopeful that at some point I'll improve my coping skills
| enough that it will be an option.
| [deleted]
| thestephen wrote:
| ADHDer here. WFH was a nightmare the first six months, but the
| past few months have been working out great. My findings from
| this past year:
|
| * Finding the right medication, in the right dose. Biggest QoL
| improvement. YMMV
|
| * Whenever I get lost in the sauce and start spinning my
| wheels, I schedule a call with a colleague and ask them to help
| sort my priorities out. This also helps me with accountability,
| in a softer way than accountability-by-authority. This might
| require some self-awareness.
|
| * Finding a note-taking/task management system that works for
| me. So far, I've been having the most success with a
| combination of Roam Research; Apple Notes and Muse for
| drawing/diagramming on my iPad; and Todoist for hard reminders.
|
| * Getting enough physical activity. My headspace becomes awful
| if I don't get at least 30 minutes of walking in during the
| day.
|
| * Finding my context shift to work mode. Most days, 15 minutes
| outdoors first thing in the morning after checking my task list
| is enough. For rougher days, I work from the cafe down the
| street.
|
| * Avoiding social media before lunch, as it stresses me out.
|
| * I found the eureka moments striking at odd times, like
| evenings or in bed. I rarely regret following these strokes of
| inspiration, but they can really throw my off my work/life
| balance. Cutting my days shorter (most days), and allowing
| myself to work when inspiration strikes (a couple times a
| week), has really helped in lowering my stress levels.
|
| * A couple days a week without scheduled meetings. I can't
| focus if I know I'm going to have a meeting in 1 hour.
|
| * Splurging on equipment. If I'm going to spend a lot of time
| in front of my screen, I might as well get that 4K 32" and a
| G915 TKL.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Time management at home is a different ball game.
|
| A good first step is to understand what's fundamentally
| different about working from home, alone, versus working from
| the office. Some common differences:
|
| - Context shifting into the office can help context shift you
| to work mode. At home, if you use the same workstation for
| games and Reddit and work and entertainment, you lose the
| physical context shift. If possible, try using your company-
| provided computer for _only_ work, and your personal computer
| for _only_ play. Even better if you can have them in different
| rooms. Start training yourself to associate one context with
| work, and one context with not-work. When you sit down in the
| work context, it 's time to work.
|
| - Accountability can feel lessened when no one can see over
| your shoulder. This can be misleading in the short term because
| it's easy to get away with it for a while: You can tell people
| you ran into unexpected difficulties, or you had to spend time
| on something else, or any number of excuses that work in the
| short term. Over the long term, the productivity difference
| starts to show up in your output relative to peers, so avoid
| falling into this trap. If your company isn't big on short-term
| accountability, give yourself some daily accountability. A good
| practice would be to write a short message to your team's Slack
| channel with what you're going to be working on for the day. At
| the end of the day, write a short summary of what you
| accomplished. Once this is routine and public (within your
| team) you will feel some of the same accountability you did
| when your team was sitting in the same room and could see you
| working (or not).
|
| - Offices provide a lot of social exposure that we take for
| granted. Slack and Zoom can't fully replace it. Make sure you
| get out of the house and see other people routinely, even if
| it's just walking around the neighborhood. Simply seeing other,
| real human beings goes a long way.
|
| - Track your time. Entering the office in the morning and
| leaving in the evening are natural delineators for your work
| day. Try to have some similar start and end times at home.
| Consider using something like RescueTime so you can see where
| your time is going during the day.
| David wrote:
| As an alternative to a daily chat message, a teammate and I
| have been meeting for ~15 minutes at the end of the day to
| talk about what we did and how productive we were. It's been
| pretty helpful a few different ways. First, it forces me to
| think about what it is I'm supposed to be doing and figure
| out the next step. Not knowing how to approach my next task
| is a huge cause of procrastination for me. Second, it's a
| chance to notice when I've gone astray, and identify factors
| that lead to low productivity. (Like that I procrastinate
| when I haven't broken down my next task into small enough
| pieces.)
|
| I think for this to work well, it needs to be with someone
| you don't feel the need to impress. Maybe you have a teammate
| you trust like that, or maybe you can find a coworker on a
| different team who doesn't impact your performance
| assessments. If you have that, this feels different than a
| standup. Standups easily devolve into signaling to the team
| that you've done work. Instead, a 1:1 meeting with a coworker
| who you don't feel the need to impress makes it way easier to
| be vulnerable and admit when you screwed around on the
| internet for a lot of the day.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I used to live in a commercial building (the only living
| space) that had a separate office suite. When in the office
| doing billable hours sorts of things, 0% of time was spent on
| non-work issues. Work computer = a big honkin' loud
| workstation. Home computer = a laptop.
|
| It wasn't too hard a discipline to keep, I think it helped a
| lot to use physically different space and hardware.
| lostcolony wrote:
| That accountability step is part of the intent for daily
| standups in most agile disciplines. The five minutes it takes
| for everyone to say what they worked on since the last one,
| what they plan to work on, and what obstacles they have, is
| great both for forcing people to focus a bit, as well as for
| managers to help point out when someone is stuck (i.e.,
| "you've been working on that the past few days; is something
| wrong?")
| deckard1 wrote:
| The flip side of this is what I would term standup-driven-
| development.
|
| You work just enough to have something to say that day.
| Rinse and repeat for the next day. The incentive isn't to
| do more or better work. The incentive is to have something
| impressive to say at the next meeting.
|
| The other issue with standups is if it's not "on the board"
| then developers are disincentivized from doing certain
| things (proper testing of code, code reviews, etc.) in
| favor of things that show up.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Standups can help close the short-term feedback loop, but
| they don't replace long-term management involvement.
| Teams with standups still need proper performance
| management and performance reviews from a hands-on
| manager, along with clear communication of goals and
| expectations.
|
| > The other issue with standups is if it's not "on the
| board" then developers are disincentivized from doing
| certain things (proper testing of code, code reviews,
| etc.) in favor of things that show up.
|
| If important things are missing from the board, that's a
| problem with the planning process.
|
| It's easier than it sounds to simply put those things up
| on the board. If engineers realize something important is
| not on the board, they need to get it up on the board.
| Communication needs to go both ways in planning sessions.
| tikhonj wrote:
| This is why I find standups (and other ceremonies)
| patronizing and exhausting. It's like you have to publicly
| defend yourself and your work every single day. There's a
| massive difference between setting up accountability for
| yourself and having your manager/team/etc impose a _public
| accountability ritual_ on you. Doubly so because it 's
| usually billed as being about "visibility" or "alignment"
| or something else, as if it isn't about mico-level
| "accountability".
| cdogl wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. The feeling you are describing is
| felt particularly acutely by individuals who are junior,
| or for one reason or another (low self esteem, flagging
| mental health, membership of a group that experiences
| disproportionate marginalisation in the workplace), and
| in my experience it subtly but profoundly warps
| developers' motivations and drives. Tasks can become all
| about rushing to get some progress made so you have
| something to say in stand-up or the weekly showcase, and
| not about actually patiently thinking problems through at
| whatever level of detail is appropriate at their org
| scale or product lifecycle stage.
| fartcannon wrote:
| "Yes, I can't stop worrying about tomorrows standup and, as
| a result, I'm incredibly inefficient."
| danielvinson wrote:
| This is amazing advice. Thank you.
| gibrown wrote:
| A coworker of mine (our company has always been "remote") has
| written a lot about ADHD and working remote.
| https://aaron.blog/?s=Work
|
| https://aaron.blog/2016/03/25/how-working-remote-probably-sa...
| is a good place to start.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| I have. Some keys:
|
| - Lists.
|
| - Checkins for accountability.
|
| - Distinguish work space from other space.
|
| - Develop routine around work start and end times. Block off
| heads down work as opposed to meeting time.
|
| - Use the time flexibility that remote gives me to my advantage
| -- if I want to start later and work later that's fine. But
| keep routine.
|
| In other words, all the same stuff as before. An office just
| gives you a sociotechnical system in which doing all of the
| above is easier.
| nomy99 wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's wise to publicly post this "taking
| advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or
| reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests."
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| At least he is honest and wants to change. Better than 99% of
| people out there.
| nomy99 wrote:
| Honesty doesn't replace accountability. Wasting three days
| is a long time to just be "procrastinating"
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| I can tell you've never suffered from ADHD.
| nomy99 wrote:
| So you are telling me a person suffering from ADHD is not
| accountable for the $ lost in productivity. If I had
| ADHD, just for survival, I wouldn't ever let my boss know
| that I have this condition which is costing his company X
| amount of dollars a year.
| tikhonj wrote:
| It sounds like you believe time and productivity are
| fungible. That's the real problem, not people being on
| Reddit during "work" hours.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Most knowledge workers are paid for impact, not hours
| worked.
|
| If your results-based performance is deemed adequate,
| that means either the company is getting good value for
| the money they pay you, or they have a broken performance
| management system.
|
| ADHD doesn't really factor into it. If ADHD leads an
| employee to have subpar performance, they will be fired
| just like anyone else.
|
| Caveat: the best companies think like this. Most don't.
| sodapopcan wrote:
| Yep.
|
| I've worked with people who come in late, leave early,
| and make huge, disruptive, positive impact as well as
| slow, positive change.
|
| I've also worked with people who work 15 hour days who
| don't work well with others and are constantly picking up
| after themselves as their silo'd work breaks daily (yet
| from management's point of view, everything is running
| smoothly not realizing they have a giant bus factor on
| their hands).
|
| So ya, nothing to do with hours worked and, if you're
| working for a decent company, there should be reason not
| to be upfront about this.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| By not letting your boss know, you are making it harder
| on yourself, and then leading to less productivity in the
| future, as opposed to getting better. Also it isn't that
| it actually costs the company money. They could very well
| make up for that lost time by hyper focusing and
| finishing it quickly later. So it could be the same
| result for the company but much more stressful for the
| person with ADHD.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests
|
| Why? Unit tests are our closest allies
| sublimefire wrote:
| There are a couple of things that allow me to get past these
| bottlenecks. First, let it go. Then do something else, get
| outside, have a cup of something. Instead of thinking about "3
| hours of writing unit tests", start with "write just 1 unit
| test". Then get back and try to find something interesting
| about this depressing piece of work you need to do. Just one
| tiny thing, like "how fast does it take to run a test" or "how
| does this utility method is implemented". I do this a lot -
| trick myself into something small, and then let myself go with
| the same work, just like reading "one post in HN" leads me to
| write this response LOL.
|
| In my case, it is just a pure absence of motivation and
| interest that causes the attention to go somewhere else. And
| this is all right, as it's a signal that the shit I do is not
| worth it. I have to make it worth it in some way, worth it for
| my soul sake.
| bradstewart wrote:
| Agreed. Creating small, achievable tasks to start my day
| gives me some easy "little victories" which provide some
| confidence to tackle harder problems. Often tiny things like
| "send an email to X" or "write JIRA ticket for Y".
|
| Sounds stupid, but it really tricks my brain into not
| procrastinating on the more important tasks.
| nomel wrote:
| I've been using Immersed VR with some good success. I use
| different virtual environments for different tasks. The coffee
| shop for deep work, space for emails, etc.
|
| Part of my problem is that my "office" is in my bedroom. I'm a
| strong believer in "physical" mental spaces, so it really helps
| me.
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