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Discussion on: Focus on outcomes, not hours spent in the office

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Neesha Desai

Yes! This does a great job of saying what I've been trying to say for years. It's not about time in chairs, it's about what's getting done.

I would add one thing to the above. It's important for people to do some general time tracking. Not to make sure they're spending 30 or 40 or however many hours working each week. But more to make sure they're not spending 50 or 60 or more. We're terrible at estimating how long tasks will take. So doing some general tracking allows us to a) get better at it and b) be more realistic when assigning goals or tasks in the future.

If you don't track it, you may have some employees who can solve all of their pieces in 20 hours and others who need 60. And maybe 20 hours is fine, but 60 shouldn't be. These people need more help, starting with a more achievable goal and likely following up to see what resources they're missing (skill development? waiting on others? etc).

Also, I love this description of product development: "Building a product can be seen as an iterative process that consists in being less wrong about what people want over time."