Predictable Scheduling

Every development shop I've had the pleasure of working in had a practice to schedule developers at some sort of "maximum velocity" – the assumption that each developer could get about 40hrs of actual coding work done each week. Business owners and executives want to anticipate revenue based on billable or productive hours. Project and account managers must give commitments or milestones to stakeholders.

All this adds up to developers being put under a ton of pressure to be as productive as possible. (Getting away from hours estimating and into flow is a whole other subject - for now, I'll discuss how I tried to be as practical as possible working with the reality of needing hours estimates.)

The issue I've consistently seen is that the expectations on "developer productivity" are not always based in day-to-day reality - who can really get 40hrs of coding in a week while maintaining a work/life balance? This creates either of three situations: an adversarial and/or dishonest relationship between developers, project managers and stakeholders; a group of apathetic and disengaged developers, or a death march environment where teams become like the walking dead, burnt out on consistent 50-60hr work weeks.

What I want is a sustainable pace with consistent, predictable results so that setting and maintaining expectations with stakeholders and executives is an unventful experience. Here are some of the ways I've adjusted overall expectations of both stakeholders AND developers.

The first step toward sanity is to check our assumptions on what developer productivity means for the business. Most of my experience has been in service agencies with some time spent working on product-oriented teams. Regardless of focus, there are consistencies across these groups. In addition to working on a project, dev teams need time set aside for:

- Support tasks

- Planning and/or estimating; iteration or demo meetings

- Code reviews

- Training and learning

- Admin tasks like email, time sheets, reviews, team meetings, etc.

One of the toughest logistics questions managers face is how to schedule for a developer who must be available for support tasks as well as work on a larger project. When I say "schedule a developer" I mean a way to dedicate time to a project to ensure consistent progress while still providing support to existing code. This is not an ideal situation but an all too true reality for most small to mid-size development shops that do not have a dedicated support team. The concept of timeboxing has worked well for me in the past. In smaller shops I've had success to set aside the first 1 or 2 hours of every workday to a support task or two. Or, work out a schedule where one or two days a week, there are larger chunks of time set aside to dig into support tasks (anywhere from 4-8 hrs). The goal is to give your development team a consistent and predictable rhythm to their work. Nothing kills productivity and creativity like being interrupted for support tasks or questions about when/how to schedule. Save the interruption for truly critical support work - and do your prioritizing and planning with your developers at the same time every day, either first or last thing. If a developer is a mix of support and project, allow for the task-switching penalty in your timeline or other projections.

Projects will require frequent tuning. Making sure to allot time in my project schedule for developer involvment at iteration meetings and demos has saved me many headaches over delivery date and budget. This also goes for regular sprint planning tasks that include architecture, estimating, and even fixes in the QA cycle. Budget for these in your project schedule and recognize these activities are "real work" that need hours. (Plan for company meetings separately from project- or support-related meetings, more on that in a bit...)

There's a saying I've seen floating around on Twitter... not sure who to originally credit it to, so I will paraphrase it. CFO to CEO: "We're investing a lot of money to train our people. What if they don't stay with the company?" CEO responds: "What if we don't train them and they stay?" Software is a constantly changing and innovative field. Development teams flourish when given permission and resources to stay on top of trends, new methods and ideas. If your shop does not have a formal training schedule, consider an informal "Tech Talk Lunch" once a week and view a relevant video or webinar recording. Encourage discussion afterwards and see what comes out of it. Another element of training and learning is keeping up on blogs or other social media. If your team does a daily standup or weekly team meeting, this is a great place for everyone to check in with something they've learned or what was interesting to them that week. Or encourage some of your team to submit ideas to their favorite conventions and sponsor them as presenters. Managers need to budget hours away from coding for these investment activities. For the purpose of reporting up to executives, I've typically used 2-3hrs per week per developer to include these types of activities. The result was always a more energized development environment, focused on quality and efficiency.

Then there are "housekeeping" tasks like personnel reviews, time sheets, and maintaining email inboxes. Do you also have a regular weekly departmental meeting or team standup? There is no getting around that these things must be done; managers need to see this as work and not something that gets squeezed into the day between coding. When estimating available velocity, I set aside an hour a day per developer for admin tasks such as these - I didn't get too granular, just needed a general number. That may seem like a lot of time per day but it was typically accurate and it's better to have the time set aside than the alternative: gradual seepage of velocity, like air from a leaky tire.

If you're a project manager who must schedule a team based on hours, and make commitments based on available work hours, these ratios will be useful to you. I saw consistent results when scheduling 32-35 hours a week per developer in support or project-related tasks. Over a few weeks, you'll see productivity, energy and enthusiasm rise as realistic expectations are attained. Consistently on-target results are the key - re-set expectations to what's practical and enjoy a predictable and profitable development culture!

Saying goodbye to my friend Streak

In the last month I have begun training a new project manager at work (on top of existing heavy workload), broken up with my boyfriend of 23 months, and lost a very dear furry friend quite suddenly. My oldest son just turned 17, and because of his Asperger's Syndrome is struggling through the last weeks of school and a bit of a burden at home. My youngest son continues to be the most exquisite expression of who he is.

It's amazing to me how the recent loss of my cat, Streak, has hit me. I feel completely depleted internally, yet also extremely aware of the breath and beauty in each moment. It's as if I have no filter or padding protecting me from experiencing my environment. The dichotomy of feeling loss of a past friend and feeling joy in a present moment is off-putting yet I'd prefer it over gray bland hiding-from-reality any day.

Streak was a cat that seemed more human than feline. Accuse me of anthropomorphizing if you will, but everyone who met her remarked on how they were drawn to her. She was "big mother energy". Forrest, my oldest boy, would often say, "Isn't it funny how Streak's face looks like a face, but other cats just look like cats". I think he was trying to describe the way Streak had of telegraphing approval, impatience, interest, boredom, reproach, humor, and most of all, love.

If I was late to bed, she would sit at the stairs and look over her shoulder, meowing progressively more harshly until I minded her and went to bed. In the morning her purr was the first thing I sensed, her head on the pillow next to me, eyes half-open while welcoming another day with whiskery love. I miss finding her sitting outside the bathroom door, waiting for me to exit the shower or toilet, with a look on her face of "Took you long enough! I missed you!" Each school-day morning would find her waiting for me on my younger son's bed, ready to help me wake him for the day. Every bout of tears or heartache, she would come jogging into the room to find me, approach tenderly and purr her comfort to me while nuzzling my face and hair. She even allowed me to grip her tightly like a teddy bear.

Little things hit me, like missing the weight of her on my chest while I watch a movie late at night. Or making up the bed and not having her running in to play under the linens. The way she would wait until the moment when she could sneak into your warmed spot on the couch, and then glance at you with gratitude for giving her such a toasty location while you struggle to find a seat near her bulk. Her paw gentle on my chin or neck as I drifted off to sleep each night.

I first suspected that Streak was sick on a Monday night, took her to the vet on Wednesday morning, and on Friday afternoon when it was clear she wasn't responding to medication and both her liver and heart were failing, held her while she was sent from her pain. I knew she was in horrible pain and hospitalization could not guarantee a recovery, her body was shutting down so rapidly.

It is also difficult because Streak was given to me as a kitten by a dear friend, who was like a mother, who died from cancer in her early 40's. Caryl's cancer spread into her chest and even the weight of the small kitten she had just given her daughter caused her pain when the kitten jumped on her to be petted. I adopted the kitten, and cared for Caryl through her hospice and final days in the hospital. Along with three other women, we held Caryl in our arms and spoke encouraging words to leave this pain and pass over. Finally she did, when her daughters had left for a brief erran. It was a powerful experience that taught me much by going through the pain and coming out the other side with a deeper understanding of the transitions of life.

Fighting the lure of guilt is difficult for me. Thoughts of could-of should-of whirl around, tempting me to jump into pain and self-pity. That would be my mother's legacy of guilt and self-recrimination. If I hadn't changed her food three months ago... If I had noticed she was "off" a little sooner...

What is, is. She came to me and gave me seven years of lessons on love, relaxing, playing, self-acceptance, and courage. I'm very grateful.