[luckylion]

It's a shortcut because measuring output is too hard for any sufficiently complex work.

It's easy when you have a well-defined task that you know the average complexity for, e.g. first level support ticket responses. It's very different for e.g. the developer who looks into a ticket to find out why. Might be just 60 seconds because technical understanding + experience give you the ability to see what customer + support agents have missed. Might be 6 hours for a complicated bug and fix, might turn into a huge deal that takes days.

How do you handle that and accurately predict how much time that should take?

[wirrbel]

Basically you have just given reasoning for why there is a job description „engineering manager“.

I am actually all for monitored work hours and I clock in an clock out of my unionized 35h work contract. But frankly i expect from a sw eng Organisation more insight into their own development processes