I had a job with a bad case of NIH and my lead was a very upbeat guy.
A couple months in he gave me kudos for getting something done in “only two weeks”
This was work that would have taken less than a week on my first big frontend job and here it was noteworthy that I did it in twice the time. Confusing emotions. Initially I felt dirty. Or like I was in the beginning of a horror movie where it turns out the happy guy is the killer.
And while I agree with the title on the article, I think it’s a shame because what we should be rewarding is effectiveness, not efficiency. I probably spend 20% of my time working on improving productivity and reducing variability for the whole team. Which means I get a little bit faster (and a lot less stressed out) in aggregate while everyone else gets a lot faster. That lead’s boss hired me specifically for that, but not all bosses are so enlightened (and he left a year later).
A couple months in he gave me kudos for getting something done in “only two weeks”
This was work that would have taken less than a week on my first big frontend job and here it was noteworthy that I did it in twice the time. Confusing emotions. Initially I felt dirty. Or like I was in the beginning of a horror movie where it turns out the happy guy is the killer.
And while I agree with the title on the article, I think it’s a shame because what we should be rewarding is effectiveness, not efficiency. I probably spend 20% of my time working on improving productivity and reducing variability for the whole team. Which means I get a little bit faster (and a lot less stressed out) in aggregate while everyone else gets a lot faster. That lead’s boss hired me specifically for that, but not all bosses are so enlightened (and he left a year later).