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Crunch mode

Joey deVilla has a good blog post about crunch mode, which he defines as "working extra hours each day for extended periods in order to meet a (usually arbitrary and unrealistic) deadline."

I agree completely with Joey that extended crunch mode is counter-productive. As work hours increase, productivity decreases, and at some point, you're making so many errors that it becomes counter-productive.

The issue of work hours almost always comes up in some form when I interview for jobs. My stock answer is: software development is a cyclical enterprise. I understand that there are periods when much greater effort is necessary, and I'm willing to put in that periodic work.

And as a manager myself, I tell my team members that if they have to be in crunch mode more than periodically, then it's a management failure.

I usually welcome this topic in a job interview, because the interviewer's attitude toward crunch mode tells me a lot about the culture of the company and whether I want to work there. Thankfully, I've had the opportunity to work in several companies where management essentially agrees with me about the dubious value of perpetual crunch mode.

Posted by Stan Taylor on May 24, 2005 01:18 PM | Permalink