Curt Doolittle

Category: Business, Organization, and Management

  • Oversing: Well, you know, there is a big difference between companies who do TWO

    Oversing: Well, you know, there is a big difference between companies who do TWO THOUSAND projects a year, and those who do ten, twenty or one hundred. Some of us have serious work loads. Now, that’s a 50K project average. And that means we had a lot of small projects to mix with the big ones. But still, 2000 deliverables is a lot of deliverables to manage. That’s 2000 risk management efforts. It’s hard work.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-03-14 17:02:00 UTC

  • “If you are a CEO, you will understand what it is to manage men. There is a burd

    —“If you are a CEO, you will understand what it is to manage men. There is a burden in that charge. To relieve that burden, I have found the best control is finding someone to manage you and, in that respect, the best answer is a mother. All of my assistants are mother: each one. Without them I would sleep too late and work less than I should. I am grateful for them. One if them will see this, thank you.”— Don Finnegan

    Thank you Mary, Shannon, Jill, Raluca, Aimee, Allora, Veronika and the others.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-22 23:32:00 UTC

  • My answer to How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

    My answer to How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week? http://qr.ae/Encsr

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-20 12:43:56 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/568752915697045504

  • How Do You Make Programmers Work 60-80 Hours Per Week?

    The answer, as a political economist, is this:

    Why are you trying to obtain a discount on the cost of software development by obtaining two employees worth of work from one employee?  I mean, that’s the honest question?

    If instead, you ask, “why do some programmers like to work 80 hours a week, and others do not?”  It’s because if you’re working on a game program, or something that is passionately fascinating to you, then you’d rather do that than anything else.  But you cannot possibly make most programming that interesting. 

    I work easily 14 hours a day between my occupation and my avocation, and often much more, and usually six or seven days a week.  But I both have the physical and mental capacity to do so (mostly), and I would rather do my vocation and avocation than I would do anything else.

    The number of people with the (a) physical, (b) mental ability, plus treat programming as both (c) vocation and (d) avocation, and who (e) prefer doing very little else – is just limited.

    So, just as very few species can be domesticated, because they require compatibility in five different behavioral traits, very few programmers (or people in general for that matter) can work that hard that much because all five of the criteria a,b,c,d and e, must be met to get that from people.

    Money actually won’t do it, only make it easier to do.  Opportunity helps motivate a little.  Love of what they do helps most, and  the individual’s genetics are the greatest determinant. 

    But, if you think you can ‘motivate’ people into working those hours the only way that I know of is to do it for six weeks or less, and bonus EVERYONE Involved something life-altering if they achieve the goal, after which they get a vacation for two weeks.  Why?  Because social membership will drive people more than any other factor – at least for short periods of time. 

    If you put such an incentive together, anyone who doesn’t carry the water of the whole team – fire immediately, and keep the rest. Otherwise they poison the well.

    But it’s an illogical man that seeks to obtain two people’s worth of labor from one person.  I mean, that’s not only fruitless, and marginally impossible: it’s immoral.

    Which is why so many countries forbid it.

    https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-make-programmers-work-60-80-hours-per-week

  • How Do You Make Programmers Work 60-80 Hours Per Week?

    The answer, as a political economist, is this:

    Why are you trying to obtain a discount on the cost of software development by obtaining two employees worth of work from one employee?  I mean, that’s the honest question?

    If instead, you ask, “why do some programmers like to work 80 hours a week, and others do not?”  It’s because if you’re working on a game program, or something that is passionately fascinating to you, then you’d rather do that than anything else.  But you cannot possibly make most programming that interesting. 

    I work easily 14 hours a day between my occupation and my avocation, and often much more, and usually six or seven days a week.  But I both have the physical and mental capacity to do so (mostly), and I would rather do my vocation and avocation than I would do anything else.

    The number of people with the (a) physical, (b) mental ability, plus treat programming as both (c) vocation and (d) avocation, and who (e) prefer doing very little else – is just limited.

    So, just as very few species can be domesticated, because they require compatibility in five different behavioral traits, very few programmers (or people in general for that matter) can work that hard that much because all five of the criteria a,b,c,d and e, must be met to get that from people.

    Money actually won’t do it, only make it easier to do.  Opportunity helps motivate a little.  Love of what they do helps most, and  the individual’s genetics are the greatest determinant. 

    But, if you think you can ‘motivate’ people into working those hours the only way that I know of is to do it for six weeks or less, and bonus EVERYONE Involved something life-altering if they achieve the goal, after which they get a vacation for two weeks.  Why?  Because social membership will drive people more than any other factor – at least for short periods of time. 

    If you put such an incentive together, anyone who doesn’t carry the water of the whole team – fire immediately, and keep the rest. Otherwise they poison the well.

    But it’s an illogical man that seeks to obtain two people’s worth of labor from one person.  I mean, that’s not only fruitless, and marginally impossible: it’s immoral.

    Which is why so many countries forbid it.

    https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-make-programmers-work-60-80-hours-per-week

  • DESIGN

    http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042408/why-samsung-design-stinksON DESIGN

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-17 15:51:00 UTC

  • The 21st century worker has opinions. About himself, the business, and society.

    The 21st century worker has opinions. About himself, the business, and society.

    Unfortunately it is an empirically uninformed one.

    Oversing.

    😉

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-16 07:27:00 UTC

  • “There is room in the market for a high end product.”— 🙂 Yep. Oversing

    —“There is room in the market for a high end product.”—

    🙂 Yep. Oversing.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-02 08:23:00 UTC

  • I beat myself up about every imperfection in our product. Then I look at Yammer,

    I beat myself up about every imperfection in our product.

    Then I look at Yammer, Asana, Mavenlink, Jira, Pivotal, Tenrox, Changepoint.

    We can taste it. We are close enough to taste it. But we are still behind schedule, and over budget.

    On the other hand, it rocks.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-26 13:47:00 UTC

  • BUYS TRAVELOCITY Somewhat interesting. I use Travelocity almost exclusively

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3041371/fast-feed/expedia-buys-travelocity-for-280-millionEXPEDIA BUYS TRAVELOCITY

    Somewhat interesting. I use Travelocity almost exclusively.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-25 14:05:00 UTC