How Software Engineers and Leaders SHOULD Spend Their Time
3 minute read
In Part 1 of this series I defined the following four categories of time and shared the results of a survey that asked: “On average, how DO you spend your time?”
IN: everything the team does to deliver and manage software systems.
ON: improving the skills and capabilities of individuals and teams.
AROUND: influencing the context in which the team operates.
AWAY: improving personal skills and capabilities, and thinking about how to use time ON and AROUND the team.
The next question in the survey was: “Given your responsibilities, how SHOULD you spend your time to provide the most value to the company and your team?”
Here are the results based on 65 responses. 3 respondents were not in engineering roles. I may write about those later. There was one significant outlier in the Engineer role in the SHOULD responses. That data point is removed in the table (but I’d definitely like to talk to that person).
Role n D/S IN ON AR AW
------------------------------------------
Engineer 5 DO 68 20 6 8
SHOULD 66 16 5 13
Senior Engineer 11 DO 57 15 17 11
SHOULD 54 17 17 12
Princpal/Staff 0 .. .. .. ..
Manager 16 DO 38 27 24 11
SHOULD 27 31 27 15
Middle Manager 12 DO 18 28 40 14
SHOULD 11 26 42 21
Executive 17 DO 19 31 39 11
SHOULD 16 31 34 19
Legend: The inside pie is what respondents say they DO.
The outside ring is what respondents say they SHOULD do.
Both Engineers and Senior Engineers responded that they should spend slightly less time IN, and allocated that time to other categories. Engineers responded that they should spend less time ON and more time AWAY. Earlier in their career, Engineers feel the pressure to learn. So that response seems intuitive.
Senior Engineers responded that they should spend slightly more time ON and AWAY. When I’m coaching Senior Engineers I usually emphasize that they should shift toward being a multiplier. They influence their team. They coach. They are more engaged with other teams and business partners. The responses show that being a multiplier is a greater focus; however, they still provide a lot of value IN the team. Seniors have to learn to balance those responsibilities. It’s a tough role.
Engineering Managers responded that they should shift a significant amount of their time to ON, AROUND, and AWAY. When coaching Engineering Managers I’ve found that the transition away from IN time is really tough for them. Most of them know they need to make that change, but there are a lot of things they feel are blocking them.
Middle Managers responded that they should similarly shift a significant amount of their time from IN to AROUND and AWAY. They already spend a lot of time ON their teams to help them improve, and they seem to understand their role as a connector and strategist for their organization. It’s interesting how much time they say they spend IN the team. I expected a lot less. I’ll share more thoughts on that in Part 3.
Finally, Executive responses suggest that they see their roles as primarily improving their organization (ON), managing context (AROUND), and strategy and personal growth (AWAY). The big shift was a little less IN and AROUND, and a lot more AWAY. I was surprised again about how much time they say they spend IN. I wonder if that is contextual. An executive in a small startup will probably have their hands on the systems. In a large organization I’d expect to see Executives spend zero time in that category. Only 2 of the 17 respondents in this role said they do spend zero time IN and should spend zero time IN. The contextual differences would be interesting to explore.
As I noted in Part 1, we should keep in mind that the answers are self-reported estimates, the sample sizes are small, and the standard deviations are large. So precise numbers aren’t really meaningful, and there isn’t a “correct” allocation of time.
So what do you think? How SHOULD you spend your time? Are your numbers similar or different than these?
Please take 2 minutes to fill out the survey if you haven’t already responded. It is completely anonymous.
This post is Part 2 of a multi-part series:
IN, ON, AROUND, AWAY: How Software Engineers and Leaders Spend Their Time
IN, ON, AROUND, AWAY: How Software Engineers and Leaders SHOULD Spend Their Time (This Post)
