[dermybaby]

Thank you for writing this. How do you figure that I can learn about ..say.. project management or any other tangentially related subject while I code at work (meaning that coding or developing is my main job)

I guess what I want to know is this - can you apply these principles to learn other stuff to get you ahead in life while getting hit on the head with kids responsibilities etc? Pardon - for the ramble and incoherence :)

[mikekchar]

It's a hard question to answer mainly because it depends a lot on the kind of person you are and what your goals are. The answer is definitely "yes", you can learn all these things, but it's always going to be a trade off. In every job there are things that people like to do. If you get really, really good at those things, people will ask you to keep doing those things. Similarly, you can change your job simply by picking up things that nobody else wants to do.

If you are interested in project management, for instance, there are literally hundreds of things you can do: write acceptance criteria for stories, collect data, write daily or weekly reports, etc. Most of these things you can just start doing tomorrow if you feel like it and people will be pleased. For example, if you say, "I'm having difficulty understanding what's going on in the group, so I'm going to write a daily summary of every thing checked into the source repository", everyone will be happy. If it is useful, it will become part of your every day job.

Of course the trade off is time. I spend about 1 hour a day on average collating information for my job. I do it because I've found it effective on other projects. People seem to like it. Nobody asked me to do it, though. The downside is that I have 1 hour less per day for coding. I'm not as effective as a programmer as some people on the team.

You can't escape that math. Don't expect to find a solution that is all upside with no downside. Same for family responsibilities. Do those things because you value them. There will be other people who will not have families and will devote themselves to work. It might seem unfair that they may progress faster/farther in their job than you do, but that's just the way it is. We all make choices.

Hope that helps!