Are You Busy or Productive? On the Subject of Sustainable Pace

Kyle del.icio.us'ed me this article and I really dug it. Work has been really crazy lately - we've been ramping up development efforts so both coding and project management needs have increased.

Have you ever asked yourself the question: "Am I busy or productive?". I've been asking myself that lately. Sometimes, less is definitely more. In the Agile Software world, there's this whole idea of sustainable pace.

How productive are you as a developer after 60 hour workweeks and a lack of sleep? Every good developer should know when quitting is actually more productive than staying busy. If you're burning the midnight oil and making frequent mistakes give these ideas some thought:

  • Am I introducing flawed code that is going to haunt me later?
  • If I'm observing many mistakes that I'm making, is it possible there's many more I'm not realizing?
  • Am I really contributing to burndown/velocity effectively?

Know when to quit! Your team members and your supervisors will thank you.