Ask HN: Is Time Tracking Useful?

1 point·bovermyer··4 comments

I'm speaking here of management requiring all staff to use an app to track hours spent on specific tasks.

I have heard the argument that it's a good "marketing tool" for teams that have no obvious tangible deliverables (e.g., devops) to demonstrate all the work they do. This argument rings hollow to me, but I thought I'd ask y'all.

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This pops up when someone is pressuring an intangible resource (like R&D) into controlling costs. So management decides the easiest task that takes no work on their part is to ask subordinates to track time. Should be easy to root out the stuff that's costing too much money, right?

The smarter groups I've worked with will begin to ask about tracking time for standups, department meetings, company all-hands, lunch, interruptions from management, etc. The fractal nature of work reveals itself and everyone backs off time tracking really quickly.

It becomes evident pretty rapidly that the thing that costs the most is interference from management itself. That gets swept under the rug

Unfortunately, we _are_ being asked to track standups, meetings, and anything else that's even remotely work-related.

So give 'em what they want? It's not your problem whether its useful or not. If they're paying you to do it, then do it and let them see if it's worth the trouble. When productivity sinks company wide they'll figure it out.

Measure results, not hours.

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