NoTimeAvailForDifferentMethods

I have never worked anywhere where time was available for________, though I have suggested it on a number of occassions to my management.

From a post by MikeMelendez on 2002.4.22 in the WhatIsEffectiveness thread.

I've said the same words. How about you?

What do you suggest people do about the problem?

SteveSmith 2002.04.22

No time available

for learning

for trying new things

to do things right (but there is time to fix bugs later?)

I'd like to reduce the sense of urgency. Push back on unreasonable schedules or reduce scope. Being rushed every workday of the year (and some weekends) is too much.

KeithRay 2002.04.22

Apply the Urgency Addiction test (from Covey's First Things First ch. 2) to yourself and to your organization. Chasing urgency is a symptom of being unable to prioritize. Covey's 2 dimensions of Urgency vs. Importance are a critical tool in unwinding yourself.

BobLee 2002.04.22

I've taken to just taking the time. But that can lead to trouble, particularly when your manager is so bound up in urgency that he gives you one micro-crisis after another. I'm bullheaded enough to succeed on occassion, but also bullheaded enough to make it a "career limiting move" on occassion. Where's the balance? I don't like the idea of hiding my time taking behind external crisis harriedness. Besides the unethical lie, it also reinforces the problem. I suspect "working from home" is a common approach to this problem. MikeMelendez 2002.04.23

I once met someone who wanted to build software models. He had learned about them and was enthusiastic. His management said: No Time. He built them for himself. As he left that company everyone wanted to know where he had put the models. They asked him to explain them. A little too late, but interesting.

The only thing I've seen work with the "no time" is someone willing (like Mike) to stick their neck out and champion whatever the new way is. Unfortunately this is rare.

- BeckyWinant 4-23-2002

There's never enough time for anything, unless you make the time. Or, unless you can help other people see the value in the time you spend. What's the value to management if you do this thing, such as bebugging the code (the original suggestion)? Do they know more about the software? I have another question: if it's a technical testing technique, why are you telling them that you're going to do it anyway? Why not just say you're testing, and leave it at that? -- JohannaRothman 05.06.02

In my experience, management has never thought that the ideas proposed were valueless. In fact, given the time, they have always stated that they would be a good idea, including bebugging. The issue has always been one of perceived crisis, of urgency, as above. Crisis to the point that a Director starts dictating what tests to run and when, not because they consider themselves the experts but because they fear failure. I've spent most of my change change piecemeal, getting permission to exercise my profession and convincing my line management that not surrendering to crisis is better. I've had some successes as Johanna describes, but they've definitely been in the minority. On the other hand, the greatest bearers of stasis have been my fellow engineers who have bought into management's fear and follow the crisis by guarding against change.

I am aware that this pertains to the area I work, new systems software, where much is unknown and being done for the first time. Where, of all seven companies I have worked in in the last 18 years, only my current and the just previous still exist in their former state. Two, neither a startup and neither a major, are completely gone. The other three are shadows of their former selves. It's wild here where I work.

My 6-year-old, Pete, taught me a lesson in time last night. I asked him a question. His face went blank. I asked again. An annoyed expression passed through his face which went blank again. The third time I asked, he interpolated, "Daddy, it takes time to think." MikeMelendez 2002.05.07

This reminds me a little of those restaurant signs that say, "Good Food Takes Time." The thing they don't say is that just because you take time doesn't mean you'll get food. Perhaps you'll just get cold food.

So, just because you take time doesn't mean you're thinking, or that you're thinking well. - JerryWeinberg 2002.05.07

Here I agree with Jerry. Taking the time is just the beginning. As they say in mathematics, it's necessary but not sufficient. I think it's also important to say that some things are crises and, then, you must depend on your generic preparations. MikeMelendez 2002.05.07

I have to wonder whether we are not simply led up the garden path by phrases like "having the time" or "taking the time". Consider the next hour, starting right now. At this instant you have it. In one hour it will have been taken from you. Ditto days, weeks, months, years.

Possibly, all issues of time are in fact issues of choice. I choose to spend the next hour on X or Y. I may choose based on several factors : whether I expect X or Y to best contribute to my current goals, how I feel about X or Y, etc.

It is tempting to consider that "I have no time for X" always means "I prefer to do Y rather than X in the relevant time period", suggesting that the person in question does not in fact expect that X is more worthwhile than Y, or for some reasons feels bad about doing X. Even when they say they would do X if they had the time.

LaurentBossavit 2002.08.07

Well put, Laurent. And much of the preference ranking arises out of fear of failure, or in the case of some of us, out of hope for something less boring to do. - JerryWeinberg 2002.08.07

Updated: Sunday, April 20, 2003