-
1
09/27/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
Thank God someone remembered to declare the end of time tracking and endorse results as the most important 
I always felt like a prisoner being done with tasks completely at 2pm and still 2 or 3 hours more to sit....(and surf or blog . Indeed I was lucky my company cared only about results, not about where exactly I am spending my time on web.
-
2
09/29/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
Really good process that can be or should be implemented in real time world like IT companies.
-
3
09/30/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
How to measure the "unmeasurable"? Even for tasks such as writing programs, how a manager can know how long each program takes to be fully written and tested, to assign the task to programmers? And how to differenciate between real problem solving time (for complex bugs) and "real slack" ? And how to measure people management and communication activities (like project management)?
I believe the main difficulty is to separate fast people from lazy ones.
-
4
09/30/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
Hi,
How to measure the "unmeasurable". Very rightly put. However, after working for 12-13 years in software industry, I have a question. Is it necessary to measure it.
Making software is both art and science. It is like telling you are a better artist because you can churn out 100 pieces of arts in a day rather than one. Believe me, I have seen enough bad code churned out because of the time pressure of getting things done. They usually come to haunt us back in many ways. Ofcourse, we are in a problem -solving business and that needs time boundaries. So, I guess a balance is required.
To achieve this balance, I have found that it is better to lead teams by overall objectives that the team needs to acheive. The team needs to leverage each other's strengths. Someone is very good at reasearching out what is out there in the web that we can use. Some one designs code very well. Someone is terrific fast coder. Some one is good at algorithms.
"Face time in office" is not over rated but I think it is under-rated. It is a part of important engagement process.
For a manager, I think if you can achieve good working relationship and a culture that leverages strength of each other, takes pride in the work jointly produced, your work is done. After that you just need to manage with very light touch.
Ofcourse you need metrics. You need metrics to know what is achievable by the team. You need metrics to discover problem areas. You need broad metrics to track individual performance. Very minute metrics like time spent each day can be very counter productive as it is unmeasurable.
As a manager I think it is like holding sand. Hold it too loosely, it will fall, hold it too tightly it will fall. One needs to get the right balance.
Regards
Suvro Upadhyaya
-
5
09/30/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
Now, all we have to do is to get reforms in the labor laws, clarifying exempt employee status. so the lawyers don't swarm in ruin the productivity based workplace, (good luck with that).
-
6
09/30/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
I want to ask one question to all of you. How do you give a project (software) plan when you dont know what will be the availibility of your employees? Wouldnt that be against honesty that you charge someone for a month (22 days * 8 hours a day) and you only work for lets say 10 days and complete the work! I am seriously confused that what should happen here? Like if you tell your customer/client that the money they paid to you wasnt actually utilized, the client would never be happy to give you that 'extra' money?
Is there a rule that all understand that the work done balances out the estimated cost? or something like that? you can reply me on idrees.butt@hotmail.com as I hardly visit for updates on these forums!
-
7
09/30/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
On the employee side: Time & again employees report they would take a lower-paying job in exchange for flexibiliity and work/life balance. ROWE works because a company is investing in personal accountability.
9-5 is an arbitrary system set-up in the Industrial Age (read Tim Ferris's 4-hour workweek) We live in Enterprise 2.0.
On the client side: CLients would gladly pay for projects that were delivered in scope, ontime and within budget. Most projects miss all three under an hourly basis.If your staff is held accountable, most of the reasons for delays will be eliminated and your clients would gladly pay!
-
8
10/02/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
d
-
9
10/02/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
I'm an independent consultant and I've been fighting this time-based thinking since I started. First thing many potential clients ask is how much per hour?
I respond with how much is this worth to you because the way you're talking, the meter is always going to be running. That usually sets them back.
Unfortunately, then they often come back with some absurdly small flat fee because they only understand cost in time terms. So instead of discussing value, we have to go back to how many hours are involved. An endless dance.
It's going to take much education to convince people steeped in the time system to think in terms of results.
-
10
10/03/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
This is such a fantasy. It will happen in small patches of the country like Best Buy for example but I will be long gone before this has any real footprint.
-
11
10/03/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
There is a second side to the pay/results coin: Profit sharing. If you pay your coders a stipend just to keep them alive while they write the software, but they all get an equal share in the profit of the end product, they will be motivated to do both good and fast. The smart workers will realize that creating value is what will benefit them.
The customer doesn't care how many hours you spent creating a product, they care (or should) about what value it represents to them. I agree with my fellow consultant that the "customer" isn't quite there yet, but in a lot of industries they are.
The customer pays a fair price for the product, the company pays the workers their fare share of the profit, and the workers do quality work (because they want profit) fast (because they want their own time) and everyone wins.
It is the future paradigm.
-
12
10/03/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
I see a hybrid coming from this.
Results-based management sounds effective, but so are deadlines.
I don't see this in retail stores though. Unless the result was to have an employee stay from 5-10, for example. In that case, I doubt anything but the philosophy behind results-driven leadership (yes, leadership) will help retailers. Best Buy's been doing wonderful in this area. Or at least, they've had exceptional customer service at the Best Buys I've been to. Their name has popped up in a few articles as well.
-
13
10/04/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
Actually it is no more about 'management'... it is about 'leadership'. I completely agree with the need for trust in a ROWE. That's B-quadrant working (ref Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant book). And as Kiyosaki suggests, all this can be learnt alongside 'work' through tools available with Network 21. Readers may write to tcnworldwide@yahoo.com to be guided to the trends and options for leading the way in 21st century business!
-
14
10/04/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
I guess SNATH is talking about time matrix...Indeed it's important tool to define priorities. But isn't it Covey's method?
I wonder why thinking in terms of results is strange? Why should anyone pay your time and risk to pay your laziness per hour instead of results?
-
15
10/05/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
There is no doubt this is why many of us have left the corporate world to start our own businesses! Obviously, the corporate world loses valuable intellectual property every time this happens. I loved "How Work Sucks" and Free Agent Nation and expect we'll continue to see more people leave until ROWE is more widely implemented.
Aretha
www.tvlai.com
-
16
11/10/08 | Report as spam
RE: The End of Time-Based Management?
I think we still have to wait little longer for ROWE to get embraced. We still have lot of Baby-boomers in the leadership roles, Some GenX have started to take leadership roles but until all baby-boomers are retired and we see GenX and GenY in the leadership, TIME-based traditional approach will still be there
