[swiftcoder]

> It's never something we need to hide, but instead it's something we're eager to share with our teams - ala "hey, I did some research on X, and maybe this is something that could be valuable for us to try".

I'll give good odds that in most shops, if you pull this line more than a couple of times, your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning...

[SavantIdiot]

I think the author needs to elaborate more on "extra". I've been on both sides and I know what Ben is referring to.

This isn't about showing off so that your boss thinks you're not busy. I think OP is trying to encourage people to care about their job to the point where they want to do it better.

I think what he means is: doing extra is insurance. It is knowing your job more than just punching a clock and getting the sprint done before going home and drinking. It is engaging in your task deeply so that you can do it better, whether that means architecting defensively, or being more nimble when something blows up because you went one step further and know it better.

I've had programmers that look at their sprints, see they have to do Task A, B and C, and do exactly tasks A, B and C. No more, no less. That's fine. That's better than doing task A and being overwhelmed (or whiny).

But some programmers do A, B and C and then look it meta-task D that is a "why A B and C?" task. They then see those tasks in a more holistic fashion.

No one ASKED them to do that. They took the initiative.

Those folks get promoted.

No one gets promoted from doing A, B and C and that's it. That's called status quo, or simply, "Doing your job." That's why your paycheck clears.

Sorry, but that's how it works.

[glitchc]

Sorry, I’ve been doing your ‘extra’ for years. While it earns you kudos and respect, it rarely gets you promoted, if ever. Playing politics on the other hand is lot more successful.

[ileight2]

Everyone knows damn well enough that internal politics can either make this story shine like a diamond, be pushed into a black morass, or everything in between. Internal politics supersedes all best practices in any country, market, or decade

[glitchc]

Actually I dislike it intensely. Politics always gives rise to the most mediocre ideas.

[pc86]

Such a cop out response. "Politics" is interacting with your peers, your superiors, clients, vendors, etc. It's being able to articulate why your ideas are better from technical, organizational, and/or business perspectives. When you have ideas that shine in one of those categories but are absolute shit in the others, or when you have decent ideas but are terrible to work with, it's much easier to just get defensive and say that it's "politics" that made the "mediocre" (but better-suited) ideas rise to the top.

[mek6800d2]

Wow! I think we would all like to come work for that perfect organization where you've found a place. Perhaps I am the only person in the world who has ever heard the phrase "office politics", but, in my experience, as ileight2 says in an earlier comment, internal politics can supersede any other consideration (including money!) in any country, market, organization, and time period.

I've found myself, peers, superiors, etc. to be on bell curves with respect to sharpness, being open to new ideas, articulateness, being able to see through buzzwords and BS, etc. Some people are good in some areas and not quite as good in other areas. Pair a "used car salesman" peer (articulate, not so bright, looking to their own advantage) with a "gullible buyer" superior (not so sharp, can't detect that they're being played) and your "better-suited" ideas that rise to the top truly are mediocre, bad, or outright wrong with respect to whatever characteristic "better-suited" applies. Of course there are examples of good ideas being well-received and acted upon, but don't pretend that only the cream rises to the top or that there are only isolated instances of the dregs rising to the top.

[cutemonster]

> Everyone knows

New university graduates don't, at least I didn't :-)

And they can stay clueless for many years, if they're a bit shielded from office politics by a caring manager

[mobjack]

A lot of playing politics is just knowing the type of extra work that will get you promoted.

[alienthrowaway]

You don't (usually) get promoted for doing your job - no matter how well you do it. You get promoted when you doing the next rung up, but don't have the title yet. I learnt the hard way.

[brokenmachine]

You're probably doing the wrong kind of "extra", which will just end in you being the only person who can do $CERTAIN_TASK, so you're always the person assigned to do $CERTAIN_TASK and therefore so essential that you can never be promoted to do something else.

[kubanczyk]

> your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning

A trivial workaround: "hey team, a month ago I did some research on X, and maybe this is something that could be valuable for us to try". It's mathematically the same, but shhh.

You don't need to lie. It's actually better to reflect for some days on any new research.

[beachy]

That will work well .... for a month.

[User23]

It's been done. In one of his books Feynman describes how the scientists on the Manhattan project would "estimate" their results as what they had accomplished in the prior quarter. It's a bit messy to get it started, but once you've got a cadence you can always maintain that three months of buffer.

Edit: Now I'm thinking about what kind of tooling I'd want to make the process seamless.

[phyzome]

I've had a researcher describe to me how a lot of times they have to submit a grant proposal for what they're already doing, funded by a previous grant. If approved, it will actually be used for the next chunk of research...

(I don't recall why, exactly. Something about how there's a chicken and egg problem, where they wouldn't have enough results to support the grant proposal if they hadn't already been doing the research...)

[atleta]

It had been done in sentence as quoted from the post as well ("hey, I did some research on X"). GGP suggested waiting for some time purely for psychological purposes. But yeah, I don't think it matters a lot after a while either.

If the management doesn't like it, they'll figure it out that if you keep coming up with these then you must be spending time on them - continuously. :)

[cutemonster]

> what kind of tooling

A private Git repo where all the work happens, and a public repo where everything is 3 months old, but history rewritten so the dates are up to date?

And a cron job and scripts to automate it all

[rubyist5eva]

In agile/scrum isn’t this just measuring velocity?

[killingtime74]

Use a second ledger, like the mafia

[asdfman123]

It depends. "Let's change to <new JS framework for no reason>" is annoying. But if you do a little more research and reframe the problem to make it simpler, that's just good senior dev work.

Understanding the problem and finding what the business really needs instead of diving in.

[IanSanders]

If every suggestion like this came with discussion

- What will it cost

- What problem will it solve

- What advantages will it bring

- What disadvantages will it cause

, then there would be no reason not to bring it up. Maybe I'm just jaded, but when you try to bring up these points, people often (subconsciously?) try to "sell" their suggestion instead.

[IanCal]

That sounds like normal work to me. Identify business value, communicate, prioritise, build.

[908B64B197]

> I'll give good odds that in most shops, if you pull this line more than a couple of times, your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning...

If planning is very top/heavy and ticket centered, that's a red flag for the organization.

[tonyedgecombe]

Yes, if you haven't got at least some autonomy then move on.

[silicon2401]

That's actually a great point and a downside to extra work. Maybe the middle ground would be to do extra work for fun and not bring it up, or just finish work early and work on something altogether separate on the side?

[handrous]

Do extra work, and do present it, but pretend it only took 30 minutes when it actually took five hours.

Congrats, now you get credit for the extra work and you're a "10x rockstar".

[vkou]

Yes, and the next time a 50-hour task comes up, they'll expect you to do it by tomorrow.

The problem with faking your way into being a 10x rockstar is that expectations grow faster than compensation. The other problem is that if you can't sustain the pace, you're going to burn out and your life will be utter crap.

[handrous]

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to catapult into doing training and speaking stuff, and "leadership" roles that have you writing blog posts and attending meetings all day while taking credit for what your team is doing, after faking your way to a "10x" reputation.

[taneq]

Either I, too, faked my way into being a 10x rockstar, or expectations always grow faster than compensation.

[vkou]

> expectations always grow faster than compensation

They always do, especially if you never switch jobs, but there's no need to unsustainably accelerate this process.

Do good work, don't burn out, get paid. Keep things simple.

[zhte415]

No. Sometimes something just does work out faster, so explain that. Spend a little longer anyway as if something is vastly faster than expectations then perhaps something's been missed. Then when still presenting it faster, explain that it was faster than planned and shouldn't be taken for granted.