[michaelt]

In software engineering, many companies prioritise "getting your work done" (which is admittedly a subjective, hard-to-quantify metric) and consider any metric that contradicts it to be suspect.

A person who believes this would say that if according to policy my best employee should work 9am-5pm, but he prefers to work from 7am-3pm and is my best employee, it is the policy not the employee that needs changing.

Personally, I always try to get to the bottom of this stuff during job interviews - nobody wins if the employee assumes there will be flex-time and the company doesn't allow it!

[cpfohl]

This. I've literally never held a job that wasn't okay flex time, and I've worked at 4 radically different types of companies as a software engineer over the last 7 years.

I'll be honest, I was surprised to read this sorry if environment still existed for programmers

[dagw]

I think the criteria should be turn up on time when it matters. If there is a staff meeting scheduled at 9.30, don't show up at 9.45. Otherwise I agree that day to day most places shouldn't care

[logfromblammo]

At one workplace, the manager instituted a daily all-hands meeting starting at 8:45 AM. But of course you still have flexible working hours; you just have to show up for this one meeting whose start time can't be changed because there definitely are reasons.

Yes, I was already interviewing at other places when that happened.

[ccozan]

If you are in Germany, yes there is. I had horrendous experiences in different companies. 5 Mins late was a real offender.

Until I got hang of a manager and I asked what is this nonsense. He told me, he used to work as a manager in real industry and really really cannot comprehend why programmers "whine" so much about this. All his workers started the work at exact 8am so that the parts quota of the day would be achieved. I got no comment and after two weeks I just resigned...

[sdiupIGPWEfh]

At every company, my own managers have exorcised far more blatant use of flex time than I've ever needed. If I'd ever received any guff (which I haven't) for my own needs, they would have gotten a deserved ear-full.

[Spooky23]

Flex time shouldn't mean that you show up sometime between 8 and 11. You should be at work within some sort of reasonably consistent window barring unforeseen circumstances.

When you let people run wild, you end up with angry people anyway as gold-brickers will always take advantage of the system. Communications and accountability break down as you can never have all parties involved in a matter in the same place or same phone call at the same time. I've worked in places where people get wacky because the guy who supposedly works 6-2 really is around from 8-1.

[kemiller2002]

I disagree. I trust my people. We all understand the idea that you get your work done. This gives them the flexibility to do what they need to do for their life. I have one guy that signs off a couple of hours a week during the fall to tend to his home/farm. I have another that takes time to make sure his girlfriend can make it to her Dr. appointment. These are also the people that I see working at midnight or such finishing things, because they realize at 8 p.m. they know how to fix something.

The key for us is communication. We make sure that each of us knows what the other is doing. Sure we have meetings every once in a while that we know we need to all meet, but for the most part we center our communication around ways to make sure that we can leave a message and they can get back to us when they can.

[Spooky23]

I give people time. If you need to take your SO to the doctor, take the morning off.

[watwut]

Showing up sometime between 8 and 11 is unreasonable, because it prevents people to come sooner then at 8. It should have been "sometime between 6 and 11" to be proper.

Also since people know the guy in your story is not working enough, it should be easy to check on him couple of times and then fire him.

[Spooky23]

Our practice is that you can pick your own consistent start time between 7-9. You can also do things like compress your week to 4 10 hour days or add an hour to get a day every two weeks. We don't want you in the office after 6 on anything approaching a regular basis. You can vary the time by day, which is common for childcare or other outside demands on your time.

If your habit is a 5 hour start window for an 8 hour workday, you're not going to work out.

[watwut]

That window works well around here, zero problems. And I don't have to be consistent, I can decide when I come in the morning.

[scarface74]

Is there a reason they need to be in the officd at all?

[FilterSweep]

> I'll be honest, I was surprised to read this sorry if environment still existed for programmers

now tends to only exist in mismanaged large teams

[crdoconnor]

>"getting your work done" (which is admittedly a subjective, hard-to-quantify metric)

Getting "work done" is fairly easy to recognize - you can tell when bugs are getting fixed and features are being delivered and when they are not.

Getting work done to a high standard and delivered at an appropriate speed is, I think, only recognizable by another developer who is as good or better than you.

>Personally, I always try to get to the bottom of this stuff during job interviews - nobody wins if the employee assumes there will be flex-time and the company doesn't allow it!

Yeah, that's one of my red flags during interviews. Companies that are strict on this type of stuff are essentially advertising the fact that management is clueless about what development does and rely upon intrinsically meaningless social cues to build trust. Like suits.

[dagw]

Getting "work done" is fairly easy to recognize

Bob closed 20 tickets this week, and Dave is still working on that one ticket from last week. Who got most work done this week?

[cdevs]

This seems like it would be subjective but it actually tells a story. Most likely tickets aren't being broken down enough, one employee could be snagging easy bug tickets in the morning and another employee could be working on a epic feature.

On the other side of things I have a guy at work who rocks out 20 tickets and a guy at work who tries to go into super plan mode and take his time and make sure every semicolon is perfect 20 times. This is ok, it's what management is for I need to make sure the fast guy is a little more careful sometimes and I need to check on mr planner and make sure he speeds it up sometimes.

[slgeorge]

You just literally defined subjective by using a "story" rather than an objective measure.

[brlewis]

As long as you don't take the story points too seriously, Planning Poker can help avoid misunderstandings about the complexity of a ticket.

To be clear, though, "Who got most work done this week?" is not a useful question.

[ionforce]

One time I got laid off for not closing enough stories. Meanwhile the guy that was kept on was the source of a lot of bugs. So what is that if you generate your own problems and "solve" them?

[brlewis]

That's a different problem from the one Planning Poker addresses.

But to answer your question, the original story should have acceptance criteria such that the ticket can't be closed if there are bugs. Failing that, the bug ticket should be linked to the original ticket.

Continual feedback is also important. If the manager who laid you off valued velocity over bug-free code, that should have been communicated way earlier.

[AnimalMuppet]

"It is essentially impossible to judge a programmer on the basis of a single year's work." - Bjarne Stroustrup

[crdoconnor]

>Bob closed 20 tickets this week, and Dave is still working on that one ticket from last week. Who got most work done this week?

You get an equally or more skilled developer than Bob and Dave to monitor their output and ask them that question. That's the only way.

Was that not obvious from my answer? C'mon.

[rtpg]

Alice works with both of them, and knows that the one ticket Dave is working on requires a lot of refactoring work to solve it nicely.

Or knows that Bob is just that good. Or Dave's having a bad week because of X.

Direct superiors tend to have at least a vague idea of what is happening, along with a certain level of trust. These two make it less likely for the answer to your question to be as ambiguous. At least for ballpark estimates of whether one should be worried.

[Clubber]

If you manager only relies on that one statistic to make a judgement, he is a bad manager. He should know the details of what Dave is working on.

[tk75x]

Metrics should always be supplemented with communication. If Dave's performance is under question, talk to him and find out his progress on the one ticket he's been working on.

EDIT: realized after posting that multiple people made this point. Just goes to show that it should be common sense.

[organsnyder]

Ask Bob and Dave's colleagues as part of a 360-degree review. Their peers definitely know who is being productive and who is slacking off.