The schedule of every IT team I have worked with is full.\u00a0 There is always a steady stream of tasks to be done and technical debt to address.\u00a0 This makes it easy for a manager or team lead to keep the whole team working at 100% (or more) day in and day out.\u00a0 The problem with this full steam ahead approach is that it does not provide time for research of new technologies and skill development.<\/p>\n
Google made news many years ago when they scheduled a day a week for employees to research and develop\u00a0skills.\u00a0 Their instincts were tapped to the tune of 20% of their time.\u00a0 This is not a small investment in employees\u00a0and the company itself.\u00a0 As it turns out, Google has been a pretty successful company.\u00a0 You can see all sorts of products that have come out of that investment in their employees.\u00a0 Just take a little time and browse the Google labs projects.\u00a0 Many of these came out of that time allotted for research.<\/p>\n
This example is a good one for us to consider in scheduling projects and workloads.\u00a0 Google is known for their innovation and skilled workers.\u00a0 Some of this success comes from the employees that have been hired, but some of the credit goes to management.\u00a0 This success did not come overnight but what if your organization is considered world-class a few years from now?<\/p>\n
I am not sure a 20% investment of time is going to pass most companies.\u00a0 However, what is the cost of 10% of their time?\u00a0 Specifically, consider the typical IT worker does not work forty hours per week.\u00a0 Fifty or more is common.\u00a0 That is a 25% increase in “typical” work week hours.\u00a0 Therefore, you can look at the hours worked Monday through Thursday, and that often meets the typical\u00a0forty-hour workweek.\u00a0 Providing a “research on Fridays” benefit would effectively be doing so with “free” hours.<\/p>\n
The cost of blocking out half the day on Friday for research or personal projects would be easy to absorb by any organization.\u00a0 It used to be built into a lot of consulting companies.\u00a0 They had a little thing called “bench time” that was non-billable work while waiting on a contract.\u00a0 That has disappeared from many companies as they try to improve margins and reduce costs.\u00a0 However, that has a price.\u00a0 I worked at a company that used their bench time to create commercial software products.\u00a0 They could have turned those consultants loose as soon as the billable jobs ended.\u00a0 Instead, they turned them into resources to create another revenue stream.<\/p>\n
A program like this is not to be taken lightly.\u00a0 There is plenty of room for abuse and missing the point.\u00a0 I have found that a few ground rules and some structure will go a long way.\u00a0 The first step is to build in some accountability.\u00a0 This has a danger of becoming micromanaged, but it is too valuable to ignore.<\/p>\n
The level of accountability I am talking about is regular status and setting goals.\u00a0 Since this is research work, then the goals can be flexible.\u00a0 However, there must be something\u00a0for the employees to aim for.\u00a0 This can be a challenge for those that are not self-starters.\u00a0 Help them lay out a plan for what they want to accomplish.\u00a0 Just make sure that you push them to lead the discussion and work on something that appeals to them.<\/p>\n
When you have a team that is working for you and has a “bonus” each week of doing something to advance their career everyone wins.\u00a0 The employees will get better while becoming more loyal to your organization.\u00a0 There is a danger of employees growing to the point where they leave to start their own companies, but I would argue that as good publicity.\u00a0 When you have an environment that fosters success, you will have a steady stream of people that want to fill those holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The schedule of every IT team I have worked with is full.\u00a0 There is always a steady stream of tasks to be done and technical debt to address.\u00a0 This makes it easy for a manager or team lead to keep the whole team working at 100% (or more) day in and day out.\u00a0 The problem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[35,18],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-topics","tag-career","tag-team-building"],"yoast_head":"\n